The GOD Delusion

The GOD Delusion“The GOD Delusion” by Richard Dawkins is a superb, if lengthy, look at religion from a rational point of view. By “rational” I mean to say unemotional. One of the things I really like about Dawkins is his ability to express his very well thought out point of view in a cogent and focused fashion.
He takes traditional viewpoints that are often considered as “givens” and explores their biblical roots. Often showing that the contemporary interpretations / assumptions are nearly diametrically the opposite of the expressed meanings in “the good book” or at least completely missing the point that was originally being made.
He further explores our seemingly basic need for something like religion and highlights the divisiveness of the institutions that capitalize upon that need. I’m personally pretty sure that people cannot exist without something like religion. Many people are not nearly so rational as I think Dawkins would hope. But disabusing folks of some of the more destructive aspects of formalized religion is one aspect of the book that I completely agree with and is an agenda that I hope is moved forward by its readers.

If you make it more efficient, people will use more of it

It’s just human nature. It’s not a bad thing, but it *is* something that we really need to wrap our heads around.

When we make predictions regarding the consumption or saving of resources, they always seem to be straight-line, single factor predictions. Yet time and again we see that, when you make things more efficient people will find new and innovative uses for them that will ultimately either wash out the savings or end up consuming greater quantities thereof.

In a book that I read back in October of 2006, “The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy“ by Peter Huber & Mark Miles they argue this theory quite convincingly.

It was with some amusement then, that I read this article in “thecarconnection.com” (Hybrid Drivers More Ticket- and Accident-Prone) where, in establishing the context for the article they point out that recreational (read “discretionary”) driving by hybrid owners is about 25% greater than by non-hybrid owners.

I’m not sure if this would be because folks who drive more tend to buy hybrids or if it’s that folks who drive hybrids tend to rationalize extra driving due to their reduced per-mile fuel consumption. The reality is probably a combination of those factors plus others that I haven’t even considered.

The reality is that human psychology is not easily predictable and you can pretty much guarantee that you *can’t* guarantee what effects changes in policy or technology will have when you have people involved in the mix. And any artificial influences (legislation) had better be crafted in such a way as to be able to accommodate that reality and respond flexibly when the unintended consequences do eventually manifest.

Holy water ban to halt swine flu

It’s too bad they don’t have some kind of, I dunno, supernatural power available to them that could help them resist…

Holy water ban to halt swine flu

Say… does anybody understand why it’s OK to skip drinking the blood o’ Christ now? If you subscribe to transubstantiation shouldn’t the wine be… well… sterile?
And if it’s OK now.. why not all the time? These shortcuts could really save money in the long run.

Hey! I won! Cameradojo.com contest

The day after my birthday I was listening to one of my podcasts when I heard my name mentioned as one of the winners of their most recent contest. It turns out I won Cameradojo’s third prize of a Lensbaby Composer! This is a very well regarded lens in photographic circles, it lets you do some pretty cool things in-camera. Most notably being able to have a spot (apparently ANY spot) in your image crisply focused while keeping the rest of the image in a pleasing blur.

I knew immediately that this was something well beyond my abilities to take advantage of. So I shot a quick note to the guy who runs the Cameradojo podcast (Kerry Garrison) to see if the fellow who won the fifth prize, a Think Tank Backpack (just click the “Backpacks” image), would be willing to make a like-for-like swap. I presume Think Tank Photo would be offering their least expensive offering so I figured I was trading a $270 cool lens for a $140 utilitarian backpack, something I would have much more use in my situation. Maybe a bad deal by some folks’ reckoning but it’s more important to me to have stuff I’ll use than to have stuff ’cause it’s valuable.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Kerry did go that extra mile and contacted the other winner on my behalf and, no surprising, he agreed to the swap.

So now I’m waiting for the new backpack to arrive! I’m looking forward to having something made to protect my camera instead of my current system of using a normal backpack and padding things rather haphazardly with various cloths.

Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon“Altered Carbon” by “Richard K. Morgan” is part of his Takeshi Kovacs series. I read the sequel to this book “Woken Furies” late last year. “Altered Carbon” had the main character, Takeshi Kovacs, noticeably less developed and much more of a psychopath in this earlier work.
The novels are entirely from Kovacs’ point of view so you need to be able to identify with the character on at least *some* level, something I was utterly unable to do with this book.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Morgan’s writing style, but I will be giving the remaining book in this series a miss and looking to see if his next offering is more to my taste.

Jumper Griffin’s Story

Jumper Griffin's StoryNot nearly as enthralling as the original “Jumper“, “Jumper Griffin’s Story” by Steven Gould was just “OK”. It was an enjoyable read but the story always remained at a superficial level for me. The book had indicated that it was driven by the movie. There was not much the book had to offer besides IMHO “same old same old”. I think there is a lot more that can be done with the “Jumper” universe. This book failed to explore any of that potential.

Looking forward to having alternatives to DSL and Cable

You may already know that I am not a fan of Comcast. AT&T is kind of OK but their high prices, relatively slow speeds and lopsided upload download speeds bug me a lot. Recently I’ve begun having issues where the DSL line kind of goes on vacation but kind of doesn’t. Seemingly at random, the DSL light on my 2wire 2701HG-B Gateway turns read and flashes, (Internet light turns off) and then things synch up again. This is usually only enough to cause my surfing to pause, my VPN can most time weather this abuse. When it can’t it’s a nuisance to deal with, especially when conversing real time with someone on IM and then getting pitched off my company network.

I’m really chomping at the bit for either an over the air network or … anybody else to enter the market and give me a choice. I was running through options a couple of weeks ago and found that there is NO choice available in my area.

I’m pretty sure all of these numbers below should be zero for a healthy network. Maybe it’s my modem, maybe it’s AT&T’s network. All I know is that I will have a couple of hours of troubleshooting and chatting with customer service folks ahead of me when it finally ticks me off enough to commit to the mission of getting this addressed (again).

Nearly 30,000 ATM Cell Header errors and 69 ISP Connection establishments in less than a week seems like a bad thing.

Are Dogs worth the Bother / Danger?

First, I have to say that I dislike dogs. Specifically I dislike dogs that can take me in a fight. I have no issues with lap dogs and other smaller pets unless they are yapping at me.

In fairness, my neighborhood is not that bad. We only have 3 barkers around and they at least seem to spend some time indoors so I don’t have to listen to them 24 x 7.

Still, do not be that neighbor! A neighbor with a barking dog is akin to a neighbor who likes to “share” his music with you ALL THE TIME. It’s not pleasant, it’s like living in a trailer park where folks don’t seem to know any better.

Many years ago I wasn’t sure if I was a cat person, a dog person or neither or both. After years of exposure to ill-trained dogs accosting me as a paper boy, as a cyclist (both motor and pedal), as a jogger and of course in the many, many social contexts where “don’t mind Rex, he doesn’t bite”, I have come to the conclusion that I am at least not a dog person. Being around my wife’s cats for so many years has shown me that they are, in every way, a preferred pet for a modern household.

For folks who claim their dogs are clever, I’ll give them that. But I
would also rate dogs as being about as clever as a Vic 20 (look it
up)… with a *lot* of dust on the mother board… in a very humid
location. Sure you can tell it what to do, and most of the time it
will, but every now and then they just.. well.. don’t. Problem is, when they go off, they are designed a) to be outdoors and b) to hunt and kill prey. Neither of those two facets of their nature really blend well with being inside a civilized home.

After reading recently about another kid getting his/her face ripped off by the family pet, and to the tune of the mindless barking of the neighbor’s dog, I became curious about just how dangerous it is to have a modestly tamed but not so bright large carnivore loose in your house.

The statistics I was able to cull indicate:

From CaliforniaDogBites.com (yeah, yeah, I know.. lawyers..):

“Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States seeks medical attention
for a dog bite. There are approximately 800,000 bites per year in
the United States that require medical treatment. Most of the victims
are children, and most of them are bitten on the face. “

From DogBiteLaw.com:

“A survey by the national
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (“CDC”)
concluded that dogs bite nearly 2% of the U.S. population — more
than 4.7 million people annually.”

It seems that getting killed by dogs is much less frequent than I expected. Most of their impact comes from maiming folks:

“In 2007, there were 33 fatal dog maulings in the USA.” (also from DogBiteLaw.com)

This last is, admittedly, an aberration as I believe it’s double the norm, but I was specifically looking for 2007 info where I could find it as I believe that would be the most recent year for which statistics would be available and published.

To be fair, the sources above are biased. Looking at another source you can see a spin put on the statistics that have them appear much less menacing. Of course, my point is that dogs are an anachronism, something we should have left behind when we invented doors. Whether someone is injured because a dog is attacking them or just bowling them over because the animal is big, very strong and not so bright doesn’t really make much difference to the person being injured. And don’t get me started on the damage I see in folks’ homes and cars due to their pets, but that *is* their choice, just like smokers and people who don’t pick up the trash in their homes, it’s a lifestyle choice.

That’s my rant, the sound of barking (and to my mind mistreated) dogs seems to be an inescapable part of suburbia. I really don’t understand the appeal but I suppose I just like to enjoy peace, quiet and safety. Gotta go, my cat wants to be petted…

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party

Combining my love of time-lapse photography with astronomy, this video captures something that is surprisingly not highlighted very often.

In it you can clearly see the center of our milky way galaxy, long considered the entirety of the universe (we are so damn egotistical) rising to zenith over a star party. A star party, for those who don’t know is when a bunch of astronomers, amateur and otherwise, gather together to share equipment, knowledge and the sky with each other. I have yet to attend one of these.

I find the video absolutely awesome. Our own galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years across and that it is just one of about 30 galaxies that comprise the “local group” of galaxies and all this is just a tiny fraction of the galaxies out there… it can make your heart skip a beat just trying to conceive of it at all.

Here is our galaxy for your viewing pleasure.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.