Planet Ubuntu Chicago

Antonio Sosa: NY

noreply@blogger.com (Antonio Sosa) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:35:00 +0000

Just got back from my vacation in NY.

Went to The ED Sullivan Theater :) Very cool.
Went to Angelo's Pizzeria - David Letterman mentions it sometimes on his show.
Saw Times Square, Central Park - walked up and down broadway and had dinner in China Town and Little Italy.

All in all it was a great time.

I flew an airline that I never tried before - Jet Blue. If you haven't used them before - you should - excellent. your pick of 7 snacks - including animal cracks :) water, juices, sodas included. Direct TV on everyone's chair, XM radio and the seats are leather and lots of room to relax. Free wifi in the terminals - Loved it.

Now that I am back in Chicago - will update my lava site and obviously catch up with all my Ubuntu brethren :)

Eric Scott: Ignoramus

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:52:36 +0000

As a college student, or rather as a person in general, there are an endless variety of concepts I encouter casually each week which I end up feeling like I was just “supposed” to know as a functional adult in today’s society, and suddenly realize I have not clue about.

Some examples:

This morning I showed up for convocation ten minutes early — or so I thought — to find thousands of students already seated attentively listening to some administrator give a welcome speech. I guess I’d missed the email saying it started an hour early today.
I started a new job last week, at which I was quickly bombarded with acronyms such as PO, MIS, ERP, and M2M. I quietly Googled all these, but at first contact felt very naive.
Matrices. Yesterday I was introduced to Matrices in Linear Algebra class. This is easily the fifth class I’ve had that used them, and so I’ve taught myself — but only yesterday was I actually formally told what the heck they are. A hole in my highschool education, perhaps?
Pop culture. You’ll never master it, especially when it comes to more subculture-specific icons such as the divine XKCD, but I’m a particularly idiotic ignoramus on the matter. My girlfriend is working on educating me, but it’s a slow process.
Through. Is it ever appropriate to spell it “thru?” Or should that be reserved for rule-less domains such as IM?

Back to the grind (i.e. math homework)…

Siggy

Eric Scott: A Defense of Liberal Education

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:14:22 +0000

[The following is a transcription of the handwritten journal entry I spent the latter portion of my afternoon writing:]

I have another strand of thought regarding this “Ven diagram of experience” idea [from earlier today in my journal]. Connect it with me, if you will, with the idea of a “liberal education.”

There are many conflicting opinions out there regarding what is worth one’s study. Some are disseminated by employers who passively comment on the value of real-world experience. Some come from students seeking to justify their preferred major, and forget that most any field is a respectable and active endeavor. Most remarks are promulgated, I think, by students who are exasperated at being required to learn things that do not interest them, i.e. for which they see no practical application for their lives or the world at large.

Take this, for example, which you might find reminiscent of some demented professor’s idea of a precalculus exercise:

Most people probably look at this array of symbols and roll their eyes, internally recoiling from flashbacks to Algebra I. Just two years ago I would have felt the same way.

“Why do they make us take Calculus,” I remember a friend complaining freshman year, “I don’t need it for what I want to do with computers.” Indeed, most programmer never use anything beyond some clever arithmetic and basic algebra, with a whole bunch of set theory fundamentals when it comes to databasing. Calculus? Yeah right.

I avoided math like the plague my last year of high school. Vague promises of far-distant applications in science and engineering are hardly enough to motivate a teenager to learn trigonometry identities. I still find myself surprised by people who take interest in pure mathematics from an early age, with vague hope of their work being useful to someone in the distant future.

I’m now a math major, largely because Calculus was just dog-gone cool, but also because I’m coming to see the real value of mathematics. The equation above, for example, is not a purposeless exercise: it is a “hyperbolic tangent” activation function, used in models of neuron activation for artificial neural networks — which are a brilliant application of computing.

I only have a basic familiarity (two semesters) with Calculus. I’ve seen its magical ability to explain Physics (also two semesters), and now when I open up books and articles on “real” science I see that mathematics truly lives up to its nickname, “the language of science.” “Biology’s new microscope,” they call it.

The point? I was “forced,” give or take, to take some math classes as I entered college with vague ideas of a computer-related degree. Without math, I wouldn’t even be able to consider going into Computational Intelligence research, or basically do anything else that’s really cool. I could get a job doing coding and documentation, sure, and that would be nice, and it would be a contribution to society. But it would be a step short of my potential. Now, however, when I see math, I get excited, because I know those symbols denote something clever and advanced, and I know that I can speak the language (If somewhat haltingly — I have a long ways to go yet).

Extending my anecdote, I think there is fodder in here for a defense of a liberal education in general. It is difficult, yes, to master a boring topic. Take History, for example. Many people lack the creative knack for finding such things relevant and intriguing. I an my friends are something of an anomaly for always seeking to connect what we learn to our current world and body of knowledge — to show unconditional positive regard, if you will, for the ideas and facts that someone, somewhere is working hard to apply to the arts, science, or industry. And even we grow frustrated with esotericism. Most people prefer a smaller world in which the activities of the rest of humanity are irrelevant, and in which anyone who demonstrates thinking spunk is a threat for being different — a source of cognitive dissonance — and must be dismissed, or at least apathetically teased, for being a “nerd.”

My bitterness here betrays what I am reacting against when I say I’m attempting a defense of liberal education. Experience is a grand thing. I couldn’t disagree more with Mr. Sherlock Holmes when he explains to Watson that:

“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stack it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work.”
– A Study in Scarlet,ch. 2.

This was Holmes’ response upon Watson’s discovery of his total ignorance of “the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the solar system.” Now, Holmes does have a point, for as Doyle acknowledges in his documentation of Watson’s preceding thought processes:

“Surely no man would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.”

Holmes concludes the encounter sounding a trite miffed:

“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently: “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

How romantic.

My mind works like a jumbled up attic. It is largely disorganized, being guided by a broad intuition. I take many, many things into account when I think, and intuitive emotion is almost the only way to think comprehensively. Images and feelings, words coming after-the-fact (Good book on this: Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People (2001), by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein). Ignoring things that don’t touch me directly is a vice, because often if I learn more about them I’ll realize the topic does have real value. This is the heart of the book learning vs. experience dichotomy: just reading won’t give you a genuine idea of how important something is unless you have something real to relate it to.

I try to make the most of all my experiences — filing both book and real-world encounters into the jumbled attic, where a network of relationships can be built up, tying everything together. For example, I took note of the unfamiliar term “desultory” just now, seeing that it could be more useful than harsher terms like “apathetic” or “recalcitrant.” I looked it up in Webster’s, and have handed it over to my intuitive attic for future reference. And yes, I’d underlined those passages in Holmes months ago, recognizing them as useful to a discussion such as this one.

This entry itself makes an excellent example of a pattern of thought with is anti-Holmesian and displays one way that a liberal educational philosophy in one’s life can yield fruit. It is not infrequent, when I write, for me to draw connections between multiple and widely disparate books, events, and ideas to further express my point. Here I have drawn upon two books (And a third is brewing in my mind), an anecdote from my experience (Mathematics), and some general references early on, also based on my experience (”Employers,” “justifying,” and “exasperated” students, respectively). I make a habit of keeping these things in my mind, because they are useful in discussions that seek to bring clarity to life and how one should conduct one’s thoughts and actions — which, then, is very practical.

All this came to mind while reading the introduction to the mathematically intense Computational Intelligence: An Introduction (2007) by Andries Engelbrecht, but the actual third book I wanted to reference is a little more relevant to this whole general curiosity vs. practical focus discussion:

“Should priority be given to research driven by the pure ‘curiosity’ of the specialists, or more to the development and practical application of already known scientific results? Moreover, which of the hundreds of specialties — from the study of black holes in astrophysics to problems of cognitive psychology in early childhood to vast problems concerning the biomedical research community — should be favored?”
– Gerald Holton, “What Kinds of Science Are Worth Supporting? A New Look, and a New Mode,” The Great Ideas Today 1998, p. 108.

A highly intriguing article, Holton explores the political considerations of fiscal support for science in ways remeniscent of a student’s conflict over selecting a major or career.

As an aside, the Great Ideas series is the yearbook to Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World, a collection of classics specifically designed to provide the foundational framework for a liberal education.

I begin to lose track of my purpose for this entry. I suppose I mean to establish my perception that, while specific focus is imperative to getting anything done, consistently seeking out new experiences and widening your horizon is also important to be a creative, well-rounded individual, to keep a growing body of experience to apply to life’s varied encounters and, like math did for me, to open your awareness to opportunities or solutions you may not have otherwise been aware of.

Holmes strategy sucks, to be frank, even if his ISTJ approach still pulls out miraculous “deductions.” He will never see past his own nose, always stuck in a local maximum of what he believes is the “application of already known scientific results.” Like an IT guy in an all Microsoft shop, he may be missing out on half the tools available to him. I prefer to pretend my brain has “elastic walls and can distend to any extent” (Which Holmes explicitly says is false).

Hmm. “Distend.” That’s a cool word. I think I’ll go look it up…

Richard Johnson: Docunification

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:36:24 +0000

As a member of both the Ubuntu Documentation Project and the KDE Documentation Project, one thing is clear, our current state of system help isn’t the greatest. An initiative that the GNOME project has looked at taking on (for the greater part of the past 3 years) is called Project Mallard. There are some things in this project that I like and dislike, however one thing is clear, they understand the inefficiency of their current system and know it needs to be fixed. KDE is realizing this same exact thing and know we need to fix it, but figuring out how to do so correctly, isn’t the easiest thing.

One thing that GNOME, KDE, and others have worked hard to do is collaborate with Freedesktop.org specifications on many levels. Maybe it is time we look at continuing this excellence, but this time add documentation to the menu. How many of you GNOME users love using Amarok or another KDE application, but hate the fact that KHelpCenter is installed just so you can view the help documentation? Granted a lot of this has been fixed by just recommending KHelpCenter in the packages, but this doesn’t fix the issue, because now you have a .docbook file to read, and guess what, Yelp isn’t going to open it cleanly for you, or at least the last time I looked at Yelp it didn’t. Or you have KDE and want to open up the .xml file with KHelpCenter, but it just doesn’t work correctly. I think if we were to unify documentation we could move toward the goal of world domination

Would working closely together help fix our issues, would this be a good thing? What would be the “best” way to move forward?

Max Luebbe: Plans for an NES DevKit Using 2008 Technology

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:07:53 +0000

In a recent post I discussed the viability of developing new games for old platforms as a vehicle to liberate the gaming from the repetitive titles that currently plague the industry.

In order to get started on such a campaign, developers would need to be armed with the proper tools to do start writing a new generation of titles efficiently and at minimum cost.

1) Development Environment

The NES games would likely be programmed in 6502 assembly, and there should be no reason why a modern computer couldn’t be used to test the games via an emulator. For this task, I would propose developing a plugin for the popular Eclipse development environment which would include all the required tools in one convenient place.

The plugin would include tools to do syntax highlighting and checking of the assembly code, an Emulator tied to the compile/run command that would launch windowed inside of eclipse, and also most likely rudimentary sound and image editors for composing the media aspects of the game. Powerful modern software development tools already compatible with eclipse would be of great assistance here such as source control, static analysis and performance profiling. Another valuable feature found in some plugins would be code assist, to provide code snippets for common tasks such as probing the controller buttons. An Eclipse plugin with these features would be a godsend to any potential NES developer, especially because these tools would ideally be open source and free - providing for community improvements and widespread usage (Not to mention inherently cross platform, supporting Windows, Linux and OS X!).

2) Development Cartridge

After testing in the development environment, a game would need to be tested on native hardware as well. For this task I propose the construction of a development cartridge that includes the basic functionality of a NES cartridge but uses cheap modern microcontrollers and flash ram in order to have reprogrammable ROM and Mapper components. The cartridge would feature a speedy USB link for dumping new software to the cartridge and also possibly for in-circuit debugging, both of course in conjunction with the Eclipse plugin. Having a cartridge like this would also be handy in transporting games in progress to demo for others, being playable in any Nintendo system in the world. One major technical hurdle would be in defeating the 10NES authentication system present in all licensed Nintendo cartridges.

As these development carts would initially be fairly limited in production, a quick solution could be to harvest 10NES chips from existing NES cartridges - an ideal candidate for this being the dime a dozen Super Mario / Duck Hunt cartridge which came with almost every NES every made (wikipedia says that about 40 million of them exist). Better methods for handling this will be the topic of a future post!

3) Test controllers

In order to test on a PC as authentically as possible, real NES hardware must be interfaced with the computer. Around the internet, tons of people have taken the lazy route in doing this via a parallel port conversion. However, this is 2008 and a more ideal solution is to create a NES to USB adapter that would probably require the the connectors off the front of a NES system, a microcontroller for usb encoding and a female usb jack to connect to the computer using a standard usb cable. This solution would be ideal because the microcontroller could be powered over USB, and almost every modern machine has usb ports, whereas classic printer/parallel ports are beginning to be phased out. In particular, this would allow for portable development on laptops.

4) Production Cartridge

In order to distribute finished games in manners other than rom files, assuming the Nintendo and other heavyweights have not seen the light and allowed for digital distribution - is to produce homebrew cartridges. The first thought to come to mind would be to use a cheap modern microcontroller with decent storage capacity to reproduce the cartridge’s internal functionality. These could be programmed using traditional techniques, most likely with some eclipse automation again. The cartridge board itself would be designed via a publicly distributed eagle pcb schematic file so that 3rd party vendors such as freepcbs.com could mass produce them with professional results at minimal cost. The cartridge shells themselves would be created via homebrew vacuum forming techniques, and lack the obnoxious security bits holding them together featured by every original cartridge on the planet. Additionally, in game saves would be accomplished via modern flash ram, as opposed to the CR2032 batteries found in games like Dragon Warrior and Legend of Zelda, that die and then need to be replaced periodically with tedious soldering. Again, the authentication system would create a problem and this initial solution would include a socket on the pcb to drop in a 10NES chip harvested from another cartridge.

With these four bullet points taken care of, the major technical hurdles in launching a new wave of 8-bit games would be complete and all that would remain would be traditional simple ones such as packaging and marketing. Stores that specialize in classic gaming that are starting to popup would probably happily carry these new games on consignment until significant momentum could be gained for traditional distribution.

I intend to begin work on this plan shortly, and welcome any questions, comments or suggestions you may have!

Bookmark to:

Chad Sutton: Pidgin Sound and Ubuntu 8.04

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:18:47 +0000

So my Pidgin has been without sound for some time now. I figured it was about time I figured out why. It turns out that Ubuntu 8.04 and its use of Pulse Audio is the culprit. If there was one thing about Ubuntu 8.04 that they really blew, it was the sound.

I'm sorry but there are just too many apps that don't handle Pulse Audio well or at all. Even some amazing sound utilities and apps. Hello? Audacity?

So how do I get around this issue? Well I noticed that under the Preferences | Sound tab I can change the method to "Command". So as a lark I put in aplay and the path to a wave file. Sure enough it worked just fine. The next problem was how do I get the individual sounds to play rather than the same sound for everything?

Simple! A Google search later and I find that you can just slap a %s in there instead. So the command I use is "aplay %s". Now I finally have Pidgin sounds again.

Ubuntu! Hey! Get going on how to get all this sound stuff working without having to tweak all of this stuff! Sure I understand that not everything is going to work with Pulse yet, but if there is a work around, then you should have it in your packages to use it. Perhaps it was a bit early to move to Pulse. Perhaps moving early will speed other apps to adapt faster. Either way its annoying while everything is caught in this transition.

Eric Scott: Time Warp

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:54:18 +0000

What’s wrong with this picture?

Siggy

Andrew Bassett: Hardy and Compiz Fusion

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew's Blog) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:10:05 +0000

Previously, I have not been a fan of Compiz/Beryl/AIGLX/XGL, as it did not really improve my work, it only got in the way. When I upgraded to Hardy, I decided to give Compiz Fusion a go.

Once I enabled 'Extra' Visual Effects in the Appearance application (System --> Preferences --> Appearance), I went about installing the Emerald Theme Manager.

sudo apt-get install emerald compizconfig-settings-manager

I ran across the problem of the emerald-themes package not being available as well as Emerald no longer allowing you to download the GPL'ed themes.

I downloaded the package from here:
http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/e/emerald-themes/emerald-themes_0.2.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb

and then:

sudo dpkg -i emerald-themes_0.2.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb

The next step is to install the tray icon for Compiz Fusion.

sudo apt-get install fusion-icon

Next, go to Applications --> System Tools --> Compiz Fusion Icon. Right click on the blue cube next to your clock and go to 'Select Window Decorator' and choose 'Emerald'.

Once this is switched, go to System --> Preferences --> Sessions. In Startup Programs, click Add. In the Name field, type in Compiz Fusion Icon, and in the Command field, type in fusion-icon.

To access the Emerald Theme Manager, go to System --> Preferences --> Emerald Theme Manager. I decided on rezlooks-pastelgreen-1pxb.

Eric Scott: Myself in 40 Years

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:32:44 +0000

In keeping with the theme of my last post, Googling for my name revealed the following image:

The caption reads “Eric Scott, Retired Coal Miner, Dominion NS.”

Siggy

Max Luebbe: A Future for Retro Gaming?

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:25:12 +0000

Mega Man 9 was recently announced, and if you haven’t got a chance to check it out yet - it’s extremely noteworthy that it is being developed in the same lo-resolution style as its 8-bit NES predecessors, and that it will be the closest thing to a new NES game in about 15 years. While it is unfortunate that Mega Man 9 is not going to be released on the traditional cartridge form to avid retro-gamers like myself, its upcoming distribution via WiiWare and XBox Live as well as widespread anticipation for its release seems to ask the question, is this format actually dead?

From working part time at a used video game store in Chicago, I would say the answer is most definitely ”no”. Despite carrying about every console in existence, including ones from the latest generation - by and far the most popular system we carry is the classic 8-bit NES. This seems to argue that despite all the advances in gaming technology, there are still a ton of people out there yearning to play some simple platformers on a controller with less buttons than you can count with one hand. Content seems to trump presentation for a large fraction of the gaming public. Another common comment I’ve gotten from customers, and one I happen to agree with is that a lot of people like video games, but lack the time in their day for the total world immersion demanded by blockbuster titles like GTA 4, Metal Gear Solid 4 or the latest Zelda or Final Fantasy game. Many people are just looking for something they can play casually for 15 to 30 minutes a day and then walk away from. Classics like Super Mario Bros., Dr. Mario, Tetris, and Castlevania all fall into this category - games don’t need to be deep, complicated or flashy - they just need to be fun.

With digital distribution channels available in the modern age that allow developers to completely skip the costly step of boxed, shrink wrapped software such as Wii Virtual Console, XBox Live, Playstation Network and Steam and the apparent viability of lo-fi games like Mega Man 9, it appears that there are alternatives to the current defacto multimillion dollar development route. The cost for to develop an 8-bit game is orders of magnitude lower than what it takes to put out a next-gen title due to the limitations of the platform, and that an entire polished game can be put together by a few people in very little time. If Nintendo were to allow 3rd parties to resurrect its NES platform (and possibly other platforms) by publishing new games for it via the virtual console, they would liberate the gaming world from the entrenched paradigms of fps and mmorpgs by allowing developers to attempt innovation and the introduction of fresh ideas, without risking millions of dollars on a game that flops. The development budget for Grand Theft Auto 4 ran upwards of $100 million dollars. Yes you read that right, $100 million. The budget for a AAA NES style game could be about $100k, which would be more than enough to employ two people, a lead programmer and a dedicated artist for a year. The development time would be much less as well, and that money would be enough probably to get a few games out the door in a year’s time by those two people. This amount of money is a drop in the bucket compared to current development budgets and would bring diversity back into an industry that once excelled on it. In addition to this, development hardware costs would be negligible due to the fact that any modern computer is vastly superior to the 6502 CPU in a Nintendo, and that high quality software system emulators to test with are common and free.

Let’s hope that Mega Man 9 opens the doors for more similar anachronistic games, ones that have their emphasis on fun as opposed to photorealistic graphics. If Nintendo has already met and acknowledged this need halfway, by giving access to classic games via the virtual console - why would they have any reason to stop there by denying developers the ability to publish new games for these time honored platforms? With any luck, Mega Man 9 might be the wake up call the gaming industry desperately needs to break from its current state of stagnation and dependance on hardware as a crutch for boring and lackluster games.

Bookmark to:

Eric Scott: Clone Wars

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:08:49 +0000

Have a gander at the following twenty-year-olds:

Would you believe that they’re not the same person? The first one is my Dad, shortly after my parents got married and went off to Indonesia to teach English, circa 1979. The second one is me trying to imitate his smile while glancing at my webcam here in Michigan.

Alternative explanation: I’m actually immortal, don’t age, and have been around for a very long time. It’s good to be friend with me, because I periodically take over the world just for kicks.
Siggy

Eric Scott: Song Lyrics

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:46:15 +0000

I wrote my first rock song this summer, departing from my usual quasi-neo-classical style. As of yet it is untitled. I performed this morning at the UU church I attend, and seeing as I didn’t use a microphone I got kinda drowned out by my guitar, so a lot of people asked to see the lyrics:

All the clarity is gone

It’s no longer black and white

I no longer think I’m right

Gotta say I haven’t a clue what’s going on

But I can say that it sure does feel nice

>> Power chord intro

I’m working hard to become the best that I can be

I want my world to be proud of me

But so many people just don’t tend to think quite like me

It’s always hard to fight against the crowd

I must restrain

My carnality

Maintain responsibly that

I don’t understand myself

But this cursed sign of my humanity

All these feelings are pent up inside of me

Does wanting it make it right?

Does needing it make it pure?

Should indulgence be my life

or piety my lure?

>> Guitar solo

I don’t know just how to explain what’s botherin me,

if anything at all

I guess I’m just wary to let myself free liberally,

afraid that I might fall

Sin does not exist, they say

It’s all a cultural meme, they say

Just keep the golden rule, they say

Then find what works for you

I can’t make sense of all the conflicting voices

Where do I draw the lines on how to live my life?

Through a child’s eyes it was all so simple

Don’t do this, don’t do that

Or God won’t have your back

But the faith of a child is a mite delusional

Now I’ve seen this big wide world

Most people ignore

Recording will follow eventually.

Siggy

Eric Scott: Polls Show Fox News Bias

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:00:18 +0000

I’m too tired to comment — but I found this quote to be highly… intriguing. (Pats self on back for being an NPR fan):

According to polls conducted in 2003 and 2007, Americans held several misperceptions about the war in Iraq. For example:

In March 2003, only 35 percent of Americans correctly perceived that most people in the world at large were opposed to the decision to go to war with Iraq.

In May 2003, 22 percent of Americans said that Iraq had actually used chemical or biological weapons against U.S. troops.

In September 2003, 24 percent of Americans believed that the U.S. had found evidence weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

In 2007, 33 percent of Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks.

The prevalence of such misconceptions varied according to respondents’ favored news source, even among people who shared demographic traits such as education level and party identification. Among those who used Fox News as their primary news source, 80 percent held at least one such erroneous notion about the Iraq War. By comparison, 55 percent of CNN watchers, 47 percent of print newshounds and only 23 percent of the PBS-NPR audience believed in at least one such myth. We believe this shows that Fox News is relatively biased, creating false impressions about facts, and that PBS-NPR is less so, perhaps in parts because of difference in the prevalence of straw man and weak man arguments [see main article], although further research is needed to bear this out.

Yvonne Raley and Robert Talisse, “Getting Duped,” Scientific American Mind, February/March 2008, p. 17.

Freddy Martinez: Chicago will mourn…

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:05:19 +0000

So it sounds like Chicago’s own nixteral AKA Richard Johnson will be moving to South Africa tomorrow. Best of luck Richard

Richard Johnson: BarCamp Chicago Style Going On Right Now!

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:17:59 +0000

RIGHT NOW! Ya Jono, that was my Sammy Hagar reference there, the one you made fun of as you sung Hammer Time with Captain Morgan at some little pub in Michigan a few months back.

Anyways, I am sitting here at BarCamp Chicago listening to a really groovy talk on Erlang. The air show is going on right now over the lake and I really want to be there watching it too. Jeesh what a weekend in Chicago. If you want to stop by here at BarCamp go right ahead. We have plenty of food and drink and everything is FREE!

If you want to follow along a bit, you can keep an eye out on my new identi.ca account where I go by nothing other than ‘nixternal’

Hope to see some of you here at BarCamp! Have a great weekend!

Matthew Angeles: redDEAD is Not Dead

noreply@blogger.com (redDEAD) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 02:57:18 +0000

I'm alive, still using Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 and waiting for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 to come out. You can find Intrepid's release schedule here.

Expect the site to really go live again around September 4th for the Alpha 5 release and full coverage leading to the full release.

I don't know how many people are still running Ubuntu on there 1501, but I know at least I'm going to be.

Eddie Martinez: The Myth of the Operating System Install

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:10:54 +0000

I would like to take a moment to discuss a serious issue and that is this:

Operating Systems are hard to install.

Unless you are dealing with a libc6 issue or installing Gentoo onto a 16TB SCSI server server, you will not run into big errors installing your OS. Below is a basic quiz on XP/Ubuntu/OSX. More complicated installs, will of course be more complicated. DUH! However, for the most part, most grandma users will not be running 5 partitions on their hard drives, so let’s look at this. Which OS installer asks you to do the follow:

Read and agree to an EULA.

Choose partition and filesystem.

Select region and language from a dropdown menus.

Select your keyboard. Hit Enter.

Name your computer something snazzy such as ‘POWERRANGERS’. Note: You may NOT use that as your computer name, I already took it. :P.

Setup admin/user passwords.

Select date/time.

Click FINISH.

This is a fundamental issue that bothers me to no end. At the very core of every OS, they all do the SAME thing. The difference, and the fun, and the reason why people stick a PARTICULAR OS is not what it can bring to the table in terms of world shattering innovation, but the IMPLIMENTATION with which it approaches OS issues that matters. On the levl of Firefox, or Pidin, or editing a picutre, NOBODY worried about IRQ or the 4th layer of the OSI model. That is not for the average person to consider or contemplate. IF they want to learn, and discuss such matters, there are plenty of places to learn about such matters.

Watching youtube videos however, wont change much better WIndows and OSX. And it shouldn’t. So when I hear people say ‘Installing Linux is hard’ or ‘OSX is so stupid’, I have to stand back and disagree with these statements.

goodbye.

Max Luebbe: Crack Overflow

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:19:16 +0000

Jeff Atwood of the popular Coding Horror blog, has a new site in closed Beta right now called StackOverflow. It’s awesome and is addictive as hell. The site has a digg style interface for programmers to interact and ask each other questions, and hopefully this will be the nail in the coffin for that godforsaken hell hole known as Experts Exchange, and their ROT13 nonsense. I got fast tracked on the waiting list (apparently already in the thousands?) by transcribing a section of the project’s weekly podcast, and this will definitely be a site that I hit up 10 or more times a day.

In my brief experience with StackOverflow so far, I’ve noticed a handful of innovative and interesting features that I think make this site stand out regardless of its content matter. I really like the fact that the site uses openID, because unless sites start using it - it’s not going to gain critical mass, and I don’t feel it was that inconvenient to signup for one. This site actually made me finally go take the 15 seconds to acquire one from verisign, and I’m glad that they finally made me get around to doing this. The interaction model also seems much more solid than a regular forum, in its methods for the community to self-police and up/down mod posts via a reputation based system. What this boils down to, is that if you ask good questions, or provide good answers - other users will notice and boost your reputation, which increases your standing in the community and allows you to have more influence on the site. For example, until I hit 100 reputation, I lack the authority to down-mod anything which will be an effective measure against griefers and spammers.Looking at how StackOverflow is handling their beta, I will admit right now I intend to steal their process for managing signups and feedback because it is that solid, and imitation is the highest form of compliment. Signups for the beta are handled via a Google Spreadsheet form, which is quick and painless to set up - requiring maybe 15 minutes tops to get running, and that’s assuming you didn’t already have a Google account. Second, the developers are leveraging a new service called uservoice.com, which allows them to have a Dell Ideastorm feedback system at no cost, and no effort. This is huge. A public beta is useless if you can’t get effective feedback from your users, and I guarantee that my new venture pip.io will be using this webservice.

If you haven’t gotten your name on the waiting list yet, do it now. Even at closed beta, the community is vibrant and lively. At 8 AM CST I was able to ask a question regarding good workarounds for the fact that Java has no unsigned byte primitive and got 3 answers within 10 minutes. This is awesome, don’t wait, this site is going to become the defacto place to get programming answers online.

Bookmark to:

Richard Johnson: BarCamp Chicago!

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:30:59 +0000

August 16th and 17th, Chicago is holding its annual BarCamp Chicago event. It will start Saturday and run all the way through Sunday evening. FREE FOOD AND DRINK! Great talks and a lot of super cool IT people all getting together and hanging out. I went last year and it was awesome! So if you are able to next week, come on out and hang out with the various area user groups, Ubuntu Chicago, and me

Chad Sutton: iPhone - A ball and chain for freedom

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:07:12 +0000

<rant>I just read this article iPhone Coders Miffed Muzzled By Apple s NDA - Webmonkey. Steve Jobs. You can kiss my ass. There is nothing insanely great about Apple, who uses BSD under the hood of their OS for God's sake, and then has draconian and stupid NDA's like the iPhone app developer one. I hope Linux phones bury your iPhone. You can believe me when I say that will never ever use an iPhone. In fact... I'm thinking of selling my iPod classic (not that it has ever been sullied by any DRM iTunes) now too.

What an assualt on our freedoms to have something so potentially cool also be so horribly corrupted by control and fear. If you think your product is best then put your access to it where your mouth is. Open everything up so that it can be freely enjoyed. Apple frustrates me so much, because the potential is so great. But the constant over-control and fear that is clearly there behind almost every product is just maddening to me.

Andrew Bassett: My Current Desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew's Blog) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:50:23 +0000

Screenshot1
Originally uploaded by awbassett1

Eric Scott: Deconstructing Panera’s TOS

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:04:30 +0000

This afternoon, while starting into a meal at Panera’s (For which my parents were kind enough to send me a gift card for my birthday), I did the unthinkable — I actually read the terms of service for their free wifi access. Below are some persnicketishnessings that crossed my mind while I enjoyed me french onion soup.
I was struck by some of the wording they used in their laundry-list of what you must DO NOT:

“(x) send or receive any material that harasses, victimizes, degrades, or intimidates an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, age, or disability;”

Okay, so no threats of genocide. But what if I make a mean post reflecting some belief I hold in good faith about a specific social class or other? There are quite a few posts right here on Blogster that would probably qualify as “degrading…”

And, by all means, I wouldn’t be able to browse StormFront, since they had to include that “or receive” clause.

“(xiii) send or receive any material that you do not have a right to make available under law or contractual or fiduciary relationships;”

Okay, now this one bugs me. Everything they put is perfectly reasonable — except half the time the “or receive” statement makes no sense.

I happen to be subscribed to several online academic journals, namely through the MAA and IEEE. *I* do not have the right to “make available” that material. But I *do* have the righ to receive that material. And what if I have an ebook I legally own which is stored on my personal server? Downloading that hardly pushes the limits of any sort of law.

They can’t possibly mean that I can’t access such things, and it’s not the primary purpose of the statement — but it is what the logic would imply.

SigmaX

Chad Sutton: Shakespeare Massively Multiplayer Online Game! Say thee what?

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:55:58 +0000

As I was doing some research on some Dungeons and Dragons 4th Ed licensing, I happenned upon this Wired article about some whack job that spent $250,000 on an Elizabethen MMOG. If I wasn't so damn tired right now I think I might have fallen out of my easy chair.

But wait. It gets better. The creator of the game says this about it.

It's no fun," Castronova says ruefully. "We failed to design a gripping
experience." The scholar says he has, however, gained a deeper
appreciation for the challenges of game design: "I always had respect
for the people who made World of Warcraft," he says. "But now it borders on worship."

It turns out that its not really even an MMOG. Its built on the Neverwinter Nights engine. It can handle about 16 people at a time maybe? I kept on thinking that it must have been an April Fool's joke, but it was published in March.

How about we all just go see a great performance of Shakespeare instead? The bard's word was meant to be performed after all! My wife and I saw an awesome performace of Romeo and Juliet that my friend Gregg was in last year. We had a wonderful time with it.

As for MMOG's based on a writer's work? Well they couldn't even get Lord of the Rings Online to be as well liked as World of Warcraft, and Age of Conan wasn't all it was cracked up to be for me either. Maybe books should just stay books.

Chad Sutton: Read EXT drives in Windows

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:45:52 +0000

We all know that Linux can read NTFS partitions. Right? Well maybe. Maybe not. But you can. NTFS-3G works great and it comes installed with Ubuntu. I hate to say it, but I still have to dual boot sometimes. So while I spend 95% of my time in Linux, I still game everyonce in a while with Windows. Its nice to be able to grab files from Windows while I'm in Ubuntu.

Its especially handy when I find out that I can run yet another game in Wine or Cedega. I can often just go and grab save files or configurations from the Windows partition when I set it up in Linux. I did this with both City of Heroes and with Wow. Both of which run faster in WINE under Linux than they did in Windows.

So what happens when I need to read a Linux EXT3 partition from Windows? Well its easier than you think! Firstly we can thank the EXT3 design for being backwards compatible with EXT2. Because there is a great EXT2 driver for windows called fs-driver (Often called IFS). There is no journaling support because it is using the partition in EXT2 mode. In fact, if for some reason you try to use an EXT3 partition that still has data in its journal, IFS won't mount it at all.

Eric Scott: Seam Carving

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:42:07 +0000

Discovery of the day: “Liquid,” content-aware image scaling via Seam Carving. For instant gratification, check out this awesome video demo. A paper describing the algorithm is available here.

Yay for math (Yes, there’s calculus involved)! I’ve got to play with this some day, in my awesome amounts of freetime (Heh — I wish).
SigmaX

Eric Scott: Goodbye Teenagehood

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:27:19 +0000

So… I’m no longer a teenager, as of roughly nine hours ago. Don’t feel any different. I’ve felt pretty grown up for quite a while now. But there is some corner of my mind that’s kind of stuttering “but… er…. woah… you mean all that adolescent stuff is over? Forever? Dang.”

As usual, I couldn’t have forgotten my b-day if I wanted to, courtesy of various Internet forums and social networking sites (Not to mention the cookies the guys had for me when I showed up at work this morning ):

I must say, this is the first year I’ve gotten one in French (I signed up for Skyrock in the France section — for no particularly good reason ).

Siggy

Andrew Bassett: Flickr Page

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew's Blog) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:54:12 +0000

I started a Flickr page yesterday - I was a loyal user of Picasaweb since before it was public, but I've been having some problems recently. After discussion with Jgib, who pointed out the pricing structure, I think I'm going to give a stronger look at Flickr.

My Photostream

Chad Sutton: Microsoft Becomes an Apache Sponsor

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:16:07 +0000

As the article "Should We Fear the (Microsoft) Geeks, Bearing Gifts?" states, we should be wary of Microsoft's intentions here. Microsoft's worst market and the one that has the most growth is in the web server space. But should we really be all that worried?

There is no end to the stupidity of decision making in IT, but when it comes to dollars and cents, especially these days, it is hard to justify an expensive Microsoft Windows operating system. On top of the Microsoft cost, it will also require lots of other expensive security programs and management tools just to keep it running and secure. Thousands of dollars worth of software just to run the worlds best free web server, Apache?

That sounds monumentally stupid and costly. Perhaps we shouldn't be worried until Microsoft starts giving away their operating system to everyone and just charges for support. Free as in beer will only get you so far, but I think that is the only way that Microsoft will ever be able come close to competing. Open Source will swallow them whole in few more years. They already know it.

It will be even worse for them with the economy in the state it is in. Everyone is looking to save a buck. I think it will cause a lot of true blue Microsofties to rethink their purchases like I finally did over 10 years ago. There is no room for loyalty when the company you are being loyal to is pretty much ripping you off.

Richard Johnson: What should I get?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:15:25 +0000

Howdy my fellow lazy webbers! I have been having issues with one of my desktops (currently a Pentium D with 1GB DDR2 and an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro) and I am looking at upgrading. It seems these days the reviews are kind of garbage like out there so I was wondering what you all prefer. I am an Intel fan nowadays and have been using Intel chipsets with integrated video because it always just worked for me and KDE 4 or when using Gnome and Compiz. I would like for it to continue to work as well. Something dual-core or more, DDR3 if possible, and gigabit LAN if possible. If you know of a good setup that you would recommend for a Linux only box, please speak up. Thanks!

Antonio Sosa: Portable Linux - sorta

noreply@blogger.com (Antonio Sosa) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 05:01:00 +0000

So I built a portable NX client that can be run from any windows machine and not require an install. The NX client is hard-coded to my development box running LAVA.

You can download zip file, extract, run the EXE and voila - you connect to a linux terminal server so you can test out linux software and run apps. Its sorta like Windows Terminal server and citrix without the licensing and without the configuring. I will keep a test account open for a day or so. Check it out.

http://newansotech.ansotech.com/download/LAVA.zip

Username: test
Password: test123

Eric Scott: Gunman Opens Fire in UU Church

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:43:21 +0000

It would seem that this morning, while I was in the car driving to the local Unitarian Universalist church, another UU abode was being shot up in Tennessee.

Wow. Just… wow. I’m curious to see more info when they try and explain his motive.
SigmaX

Richard Johnson: Critical Mass

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:55:12 +0000

Yesterday, Brian Green (one of the original Ubuntu Chicago OG’s) and I joined up with the Chicago Critical Mass bike ride throughout the city of Chicago. Last night we toured through the west side (almost got caught up in a gang fight at an intersection, but we peddled through it), headed north up Western and ended up in the Logan Square area. From there we went a little bit more north, then west again, then north again, then east, and then south through Lincoln Park and Old Town. To end it, a thousand or more cyclist took over Michigan Avenue, Chicago Police included, and yelled “HAPPY FRIDAY” to all of the pissed off automobile drivers and the cheering pedestrians. The entire trip lasted about 3 hours and went on for about 30 miles (48.387 km). It was a beautiful ride, and a painful one at that. I took my Trek 1.2 T road bike which has a racing saddle and clipless peddles. I wore my new cycling shoes which aren’t broken in yet, OUCH! I also forgot to wear my chamois so my butt is a tad bit sore today, but not sore enough to go cycling more.

Click HERE for more pictures of the ride.

Eric Scott: Petty Politicians

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:04:29 +0000

Does anybody else find this to be particularly petty?

Oh for philosopher-kings (i.e. a scientist president ).

SigmaX

Eric Scott: Air in Space?

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:55:18 +0000

Last night I got a rather random call from a friend in North Carolina who was wondering if it were possible for air as we know it to exist in space. We mused for a moment on this. “Well,” I said, “a good portion of space is full of really, really hot interstellar hydrogen — fly a spaceship into that stuff and it’d melt.” Cool as that may be, however, it seems ludicrous that a cloud of any gas so dense as our atmosphere could be sustained in open space. “You’d need something to hold all that pressure together,” I said, “and I don’t see how that could happen apart from a strong gravity field.”

Today I was linked to a video explaining Lagrange points. Of course I was famliar with calculating the unstable equilibrium point (I don’t understand why he considers it metastable — I guess I’m missing something) in the gravity between two objects, but I the rest was new to me.

I doubt it works this way — but an interesting thing to explore would be whether or not Lagrange points could provide a safe haven for not only solid objects, but also “air,” to accumulate. Maybe I’ll learn more about it on some future weekend, and do the calculations myself, just for kicks.

SigmaX

Eric Scott: NASA Discovers Cosmic Rubber Band

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:05:00 +0000

My dad linked me to this really cool article form NASA regarding recently released results from the THEMIS project, which is a series of satelites launched to explore where the northern lights come from.I dunno about you, but I find this whole idea of “magnetic reconnection” to be titillating. I don’t know how it works, and have only studied the basic equations for magnetic fields — but, me being me, I want to learn more.

Two days ago I was thinking of going into software engineering. Yesterday I was back on the Computational Intelligence mindset, but quickly slipped into being drawn (Once again) to neuroscience, or even cognitive psychology. Now, astrophysics. Why not all of the above? Can’t I be a renaissance man? Pretty please?

SigmaX

Eric Scott: The Surreality of Jibberish

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:40:01 +0000

Every weekend, after work at my summer job, I drive two and a half hours to my home in Michigan so I can spend time in quiet solitude and/or with my friends/girlfriend.

Two and a half hours is a rather long time to spend by yourself, staring at the 70-mile-and-hour blur of the interstate. Several weeks ago (13 June, to be precise), on my way up to MI, I turned off the radio and began to entertain myself verbally. Usually that means singing, but this time — jibberish.

What follows is the first rendering of the stand-up comedy sketch I practiced in front of the mirror that evening. It sounds much better when performed (Tone of voice and facial expression is everything), but I figured I’d post it anyway.
The first batch of jibberish is a fusion of Scott’s Gaelic, mispronounced English, Hausa (A West-African language), and some personal jibberish I’ve been using for years. The second batch needs refining — using the entire V speech was overkill, but I happened to already have it memorized at the time (It’s a fun one!).
SigmaX, a.k.a. “Fyedernoggersnodden”

[Dressed casually, wearing a newsboy hat]I’ve always been struck by the surreality of jibberish. Whether its the guy in front of you at the supermarket talking in Spanish on his cell phone, or an Iraqi woman on the radio, mostly eclipsed by a translator, it’s an awesome feeling to let the words flow through you without the foggiest idea what they mean.

Jibberish is never more potent than when it’s directed right at you under the naive assumption that you actually understand. My favorite example of this is once when I was in a rural African village, walking through the market, and this *guy* stopped me. Now, the fellow was obviously having a very bad week. I don’t know what was really going going on, but I later figured out that it was probably either that the price of yams had dropped and he was having troubles selling them, or he had just betrothed his daughter to a rich emir, and then found out the jock on the other side of town would have given him twice as many cows for her. Whatever the case, this guy was *pissed.* He stopped me right in the street, and this is what he said:

[Pause, switching to Islamic hat]

“Ki! Ka buti mana da Allah! Fyedernoggersnodden nicht stein bon probiscus BA KA iya sani ba toccs laeno cire! Laets af caencedinces far yae TAEdie! Tha mi sgith, agus tha mi fuar, agus tha mi ban, agus tha mi tucshin, ach tha hu gle mhath! HabBAH bature!” [Spit on the ‘t’ in ‘bature’]

[Switch to newsboy, dumb-struck look]

Now, I had no idea what was going on, but I figured I didn’t have to stand there looking lika Zebra caught in a bicycle’s headlights. If he could scream jibberish at me, I might as well return the favor. So, after a few seconds to collect my whits, this is what I said:

[Pause]

“Grease! Oshkosh B’Gosh! Supercala fragilistic expealidotious, if you say it loud enough it makes you sound precocious, seventy-NINE, trombones, in the lollipop brigade, and of course VoilÃ ! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, nw vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. [laugh] Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.” [Optionally substitue “Shmi” vor “V”]

[Remove hat, hold both in hands]

At that, he realized he’d mistaken me for someone else, and we each went our separate ways.

Eric Scott: SNNS: My Next Step?

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:02:48 +0000

Tonight’s installment of discoveries while exploring my interest in Computational Intelligence and Connectionist Systems: The Stuttgart Neural Network Simulator (SNNS). This GPL software package is, from what I gather, among the more popular for Neural Network development and research. It’s development stalled in 2006, to be replaced by its Java implementation, JavaNNS.

To the point: the SNNS User Manual has a wonderful introduction to Neural Nets. I’ve been trying to learn more about them, but all I’d really found so far was either too general and basic, or too esoteric and detailed (i.e. my new subscription to IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, which I don’t really know what to do with just yet). This manual, however, might be enough to get me off the ground, to get me actually tinkering with some basic neural nets of my own.

If only I had my summer free to tinker. But alas, one must work — and I’m learning a lot at work too (This week was Javascript hacking and some *HugE* SQL queries — I swear I’m going to be eaten alive by relational algebra brackets).

SigmaX / Fyedernoggersnodden

PS: Just after posting I came across a list of beginners resources here. Looks like fun.

Eric Scott: Proof of God’s Existence: A Response

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:53:33 +0000

[This is my response to the article “Proof that God Exists” posted on Blogger yesterday by fourwinds on Blogster (a.ka. “highwinds07″).]

First of all, let me comment that you’ve done a very good job of expressing your thoughts. Belief is often an intuitive thing that’s difficult to clearly convey or defend — your ability to break that intution into discrete, logical components impresses me. Kudos. That combined with your occasional burst of praise reminds me a little of Augustine, of all people. And I like Augustine .

On to the nitpicking:

“When I read about athiests and other unbelievers doubting the existence of God, I have to wonder where they come from.”

If you’re genuinely interested in understanding the other perspective, just ask, and I can point you to several of my own posts which might be enlightening.

“Where did their ability to think for themselves get stuck.”

Atheists also accuse religious folk of lacking “critical thinking skills.” Such attacks are really an inefficient way of arguing, even in cases where it’s essentially true. There are very intelligent (emotionally and intellectually speaking) people in all world views. Many of my most respected friends are devout Christians, and many of them are outright atheists. Don’t oversimply people, especially not a whole demographic.

“First, I thought, how it was that the Sun is not so close to us as to burn us to a crisp; not so far from us to freeze us to death. Then I asked myself what it takes to survive on this beautiful earth. The word Water came to mind. Let us follow that element necessary to sustain life we call water…”

Here is where I would invoke the Anthropic Principle. Our world is indeed astounding, and the systems which are in place never cease to titillate my curiosity and awe. Making the jump from “this is really cool” to “this is supernatural” seems awefully presumptious to me, however. We’ve been constantly asking why and how things work for thousands of years (Aristotle’s early attempt at explaining the rainbow, for example, is a very good read) — and, through this long exploration, we’ve come up with some very extensive insights.

Like the woman with the donation (Who was driven by exasperation, not a divine arm), we can say with a fair degree of confidence that there is no reason to believe that God, if he exists, intervenes in the water cycle, the ecosystem, the functioning of the human body, the orbit of the planets, the propogation of light waves, or the formation of galaxies. If He’s up there, He may have set it all in motion via “magic,” but the current state of affairs is governed by natural laws, not miracles.
So why do we have a planet that can sustain life? The Anthropic Principle: because the only place where we would be asking such questions is in a place that can sustain life. Of the trillions upon trillions of stars and planets in the universe (Or perhaps multiverse), one here and there is bound to turn up with favorable properties. And here we are, flabbergasted at and enamored with our own existence.

“But if you do give consideration to such dribble that usually comes from scientists and/or astronomers (of all people), I urge you to think again. It deserves your careful thought.”

Scientists and astronomers (Astronomers are scientists — though they generally go by the term “astrophysicist” these days) are the layer of our society that is most dedicated to “careful thought.” It offends me that you dismiss them so readily.

I think it was my Physics professor who told me “I will never ask you to take something ‘on faith,’ as it is. In Physics we always show you the evidence, the history of the theories, and the why behind the formulas.” *That* is critical thinking — and, to make my own stereotype of a demographic, is vastly different from the rhetoric that dominates the pulpit.

“Planet earth was created by God Himself, especially for man and beasts.”

Even if all that you’ve brought up as evidence for design were convincing, it does not establish the nature of God as Judeo-Christian, or that we are at the center of the cosmic plan. That requires further evidence/experience/blogs. This is the “Russell’s Teapot” fallacy, or what has more recently become known as the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.”
When dealing with skeptics such as myself, starting from the Biblical perspective and working your way out to “proof” feels backwards. Telling me “Jesus loves you” is all find and dandy, but totally meaningless if I don’t yet believe He is alive, much less divine. Not that you’re really doing this in your article — I’m just kinda venting about some previous encounters I’ve had with various evangelicals and/or theologians.

Finally, on a slightly related note, I happen to have also made a post yesterday expressing my awe at the world/solar system in which we live: Flabbergasted Atheist.

Cheers, and good luck on the journey,
SigmaX

Eric Scott: Flabbergasted Atheist

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:12:07 +0000

Since I posted yesterday about a religion quiz I took, I figured I’d follow up with this one, which a friend linked me to afterwards.

As I answered this short battery of multiple-choice questions, I began to become slightly perterbed. Since I’m skeptical of the supernatural, I found myself consistently clicking the “not applicable” and/or “doesn’t matter” options, and thereby leaving the more magnanimous issues out in the rain.

Basically, when it was done, I realized that this test does not differentiate between nihilist and existentialist, cynic and idealist. There was never a question that allowed me to expres how I, as one who some might call a deeply “spiritual” agnostic-atheist, actually view the universe. So this is me expounding. From my journal on 08 June:

“Of all the planets in the solar system, with their giant twisting storms, methane seas, volcanoes, craters, and deserts — zoom in on Earth. In through the white clouds on top of today’s storm, you come in on several open windows on the corner of a house. Rain pours down in terrible torrents all around, wind pulling it in curled wisps. And then there’s a voice — a passionate song being sung not despite, not to, but with the rain. A lone consciousness enamored with being alive, albeit thrust into a quasi-hostile environment and confined to a small world. ‘We don’t know what’s going on, but we’re all in this together,’ goes my favorite rendering of the humanist mantra (A meaningful point right now, since I’ve started adopting the term ‘humanist’ to describe myself).”

You see, what the quiz missed out on was the feelings I have for existence. I am utterly flabbergasted by the universe and the mystery it puts forward, and the existence it’s given me (Science says: “Big bang.” I say: “why?” Science says: “Electricity and Magnetism. I say: “hehe… magic.” Science says: “Natural selection.” I say: “Love”). A lack of belief in some sort of inexplicable, albeit deeply felt spiritual meme does not lessen the wonder and sensation of being alive, learning about the world, having relationships and feeling empathy for my fellow man. I am anything but apathetic about all this, whatever exactly it may be.

The fundamental question of naturalistic philosophy: “why is there something instead of nothing at all?” We will probably never know the answer — and just because science can’t tell us doesn’t mean religion can do any better (*cough* speghetti monster *cough*) — but the question alone is enough to touch one deeply.

My results:

1.	Secular Humanism (100%)
2.	Unitarian Universalism (93%)
3.	Nontheist (88%)
4.	Liberal Quakers (73%)
5.	Theravada Buddhism (71%)
6.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (56%)
7.	Neo-Pagan (56%)
8.	Taoism (49%)
9.	Orthodox Quaker (40%)
10.	New Age (39%)
11.	Mahayana Buddhism (33%)
12.	Reform Judaism (30%)
13.	Jainism (28%)
14.	Seventh Day Adventist (28%)
15.	Bahá’í Faith (26%)
16.	Sikhism (22%)
17.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (22%)
18.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (19%)
19.	Scientology (16%)
20.	Hinduism (15%)
21.	New Thought (13%)
22.	Eastern Orthodox (12%)
23.	Islam (12%)
24.	Orthodox Judaism (12%)
25.	Roman Catholic (12%)
26.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (9%)
27.	Jehovah’s Witness (7%)

SigmaX Fyedernoggersnodden

PS: That signature is an experiment. I don’t want to give up “SigmaX”, but my alternative alias, “Fyedernoggersnodden” is much more unique. In fact, it’s entirely unique. Makes it fun for googling .

Eric Scott: Convoluted

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:59:36 +0000

Dear Mom and Dad:

Today I created an SQL statement that used three JOINs and five nested SELECT statements (It felt just like doing calculus!). You won’t know what that means, but basically I either did something really convoluted, or really clever, or both. The point is, I had fun, and you should be proud of me.

Hope your summer is going as well as mine!

Love,
Eric

Eric Scott: Which is the right religion for you?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:43:58 +0000

Quiz link thanks to mmmhollywould on Blogster.com. I must say I’m rather surprised that Christianity scored so low in relation to Islam and such. I think it asked too many theological questions — I may not believe Christ was God, but I would revert to that long before I was convinced that Muhammed’s words were any more inspired. The rest I understand and agree with, though.

Which is the right religion for you? (new version)

You scored as a Agnosticism You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics do not know or claim to know whether or not God exists, but could admit that someone else might know. An intellectually honest agnostic would have to take that position, as he has no more evidence of the impossibility of knowing God than he has of the existence of God. Agnosticism is a philosophy that God’s existence is not proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe.

Agnosticism

75%

Buddhism

70%

Atheism

70%

Paganism

60%

Satanism

55%

Confucianism

45%

Islam

40%

Hinduism

35%

Haruhism

30%

Christianity

25%

Judaism

Eric Scott: For Pete’s Sake, Blink!

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:17:16 +0000

If I knew I was going to die in the next five minutes, my final message to humanity would be this: Blink.

It’s okay if you want to pass people on the right, even though there’s a semi keeping you from actually getting around them, just to show your frustration that they’re only going ten miles an hour over the speed limit. You can cut me off, it probably won’t hurt my travel time at all. It’s okay if you want to turn a two-lane road into a four-lane one (As they often do in third-world countries) just because you can’t wait your turn like a decent citizen. It’s okay if you want to tailgate me. I might brake check you, but that’s my right (’ish) just like it’s your right (’ish) to wear you immaturity on your sleeve.

But blink. Blink! For Pete’s sake, blink!!!

Our problems figuring out how to communicate and adequately manage the flow of millions of automobiles in the country is bad enough already. There are much, *much* better ways of doing things in any given traffic situation (For example, I’ve always wondered what would happen if everyone let off the brake when they saw the light turn green, turning the painfully slow-starting queue into an instantly moving train), and it’s quite ironic that smart individuals such as ourselves are stuck in a stop-and-go valve system that renders us as hardly more competant than blood cells coasting and cramming through a vein. But we do the best we can short of having a hive mind.

The “best we can” involves blinkers. Blinkers are what separate us sophisticated automobile drivers from the common, savage water molecule. If you don’t use your blinker, I have to wait longer before deciding my course of action. Sometimes that means *stopping my car* to wait for you to make up your mind. I shouldn’t have to do this, because you already know what you’re going to do, and you’re already under legal obligation to tell me about it. Why not share? Communicate! It’s so simple!

Blink! Blink! For Pete’s sake, blink!!!

Okay, I feel better now.

Siggy