Segacs's World I Know

Archive for the ‘Science and technology’ Category

Seems that in addition to calling for Israel’s destruction, denying the Holocaust, and developing nuclear weapons, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s list of hobbies has expanded to include blogging.

I wonder if this will be any more interesting than Paul Martin’s foray into the blogosphere. By the looks of it, not so far.

Watch for the newest craze to hit the blogosphere: Prisonblogging:

The prison blog of a New Zealand political activist jailed for the rare crime of sedition has outraged opposition politicians but corrections officials say it’s within the law.

After being jailed this month, Timothy Selwyn begun publishing the internet diary via an outside supporter and his latest entry gives an account of a jail-yard assault by prisoners on a fellow inmate.

He has also criticised the judge who sentenced him.

Something tells me this will wear thin pretty quickly. After all, once the novelty wears off, who will want to read about the daily life of a guy who spends most of his time locked in a cell?

Probably the same people who watch Big Brother.

It’s official: Google is a verb.

Something Damian Penny wrote the other day came back to me just now: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Damian was, of course, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial. However, I think the quote is a good one, and it popped into my head when I read about today’s ruling against teaching creationism in schools:

A federal judge on Tuesday banned the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution by Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District, saying the practice violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

[ . . . ]

The school district was sued by a group of 11 parents who claimed teaching intelligent design was unconstitutional and unscientific and had no place in high school biology classrooms.

Before you jump down my throat, I’m in no way implying that Holocaust denial is comparable to creationism. What I am saying, however, is that there’s a clear difference between fact and invention – as in the case of Holocaust denial – which I think we all recognize fairly easily. What many people fail to recognize, however, is that we must also make a clear distinction between fact and belief.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Creationism (repackaged as “intelligent design” or whatever you rename it) is a belief. It is based on faith, not evidence, and cannot be proven for the simple reason that it cannot be disproven.

Today’s ruling banned the teaching of creationism because it violates the separation of church and state. I think the real reason it ought to be banned from science curricula is because it isn’t science. After all, there is no constitutional ban on teaching Holocaust denial in history class, and yet I’m sure we would all call for the dismissal of any teacher who tried, simply on the grounds that it’s wrong.

I have no objection to the teaching of creationist theory in a course about religion, humanities, or cultural studies. But high school biology teachers who teach creationism as scientific fact are muddling fact and belief. People are entitled to hold a belief, but when teaching science, they need to stick to facts.

And so, to restate Damian’s point, everyone is entitled to his own beliefs, but not his own facts.

Google launched its new Talk service in Beta. From what I gather, it’s an IM service that allows you to voice call for free. Soon, it will likely be on every computer.

I’m gonna wait a bit, and see if people start switching over from MSN. It wouldn’t surprise me much.

I can’t help but think that life before electricity must have been so much simpler.

Earlier today, I had to break into my own car when my car alarm inexplicably stopped working. At first, I thought the battery was dead on the clicker. But after trying the spare, I realized it was a problem with the alarm itself. Unlocking the car with the key did not set the alarm off, as it was supposed to, but the car wouldn’t start because there’s an ignition kill switch. In the end I had to disconnect the battery to reset the alarm. And all this for what? Car alarms don’t actually deter theft; they just provide a discount on insurance rates.

Then I got home to see a fire truck outside my apartment building. Minor panic gave way to relief when the firemen told me that the fire was outside on an electric pole and not inside, and that it was perfectly safe to enter. But the power was out for a while. It’s amazing how much an hour-long power outage wreaks havoc with life. The temperature in here is easily over 30 degrees, and without electricity of course my fan doesn’t work. Heating up dinner wasn’t possible, and I was worried that the food in the freezer would defrost and ruin. Just home from the gym I was craving a shower, but of course there was no hot water.

But there’s a flip side. With the power out, nobody could do much of anything, so people from my building and the one across the street just stood out on their balconies or fire escapes and chatted. There was actual evidence of human contact for, oh, about 15 minutes. Then the power came back on and we all went back inside to get back to our daily lives – or, in my case, to blog about it.

So now the car alarm’s working, the power’s on, the food’s in the oven and the fan is cooling down my apartment. And maybe I’ll meet some more neighbours during the next power failure.

Yeah, it pretty much sucks. Tons of ads, extra buttons, useless features and nonsense clutter.

If, like me, you installed it because you were tired of being reminded to, see here and here for ways to make it somewhat less annoying.

The Federal Government has been bogged down with AdScam, party switching and non-confidence votes, and as a result has been able to get precious little done. But it seems that instead of trying to devote time and energy to important issues, the government is introducing legislation against file-sharers and music downloaders; you know, public enemy number one:

The new legislation will contain rules that will make it illegal to hack or break into the digital locks often used to prevent the copying of movies and software – although it will remain perfectly legal in Canada to copy a CD for personal use.

“The digital locks themselves can be used to take away rights that users already have,” University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist told CTV News.

The legislation also sets up what is called a notice-and-notice regime to handle complaints of copyright infringement.

Under this system, an Internet service provider will receive a notice from a copyright holder complaining about violations from its provider’s customers. The ISP would then send a notice to that customer.

Hahahaha.

Full disclosure: Yes, I download and share music. Yes, I’ll buy a CD if it’s really really good… but I admit I buy very few these days as compared to what I download.

I’ve long maintained that there’s no legislative solution to a technological problem. Copying technology will always be ten steps ahead of methods aimed at curbing it.

Record companies have tried everything: lobbying for legislation, introducing copy-protection technology, flooding download sites with false versions of popular songs, and even suing teenagers. None of it has made an iota of difference. Downloading is even more popular than ever.

This latest pitiful effort by the Canadian government to pretend to be doing actual work is just a finger in the dam, but it will do nothing concrete to close the floodgates.

Sooner or later, record companies will have to recognize that they were selling water in the desert, but it’s been raining for quite some time. Either they switch to selling umbrellas or they’re going to put themselves out of business… soon.

I’ve officially succumbed to pressure and joined the digital revolution. My new camera seems to be a lot of fun. I played tourist in Montreal yesterday, walking around all the places crowded with map-reading Americans, snapping photos of Chinatown, Old Montreal, downtown, Mount Royal… The verdict? There’s actually something to this digital thing. It’s lots of fun!

With my convenient little pocket 35mm point-and-shoot camera stolen in Costa Rica, I’m faced with the prospect of having to replace it. And that means it’s decision-time: do I stick with the film I know and love, thus declaring myself firmly as a dinosaur, or do I make the leap to digital?

Sure, digital is the “wave of the future”, it’s rapidly replacing film except in a few circumstances, and people look at me with that sad, sympathetic look when I mention I’m considering buying another film camera. And the perks are sorely tempting: being able to instantly see shots and retake them if they don’t come out, convenient cropping and editing, posting online and e-mailing to friends, and all the cool features and extras.

But as I started to investigate, I really started to question the whole thing. I have a fair idea of what I want in a camera. The trouble is, it doesn’t seem to exist. Anywhere.

I’ve been reading reviews until my eyes are spinning, and every time I think I find a good camera for my needs, there’s some sort of “catch” that ruins it for me. Low resolution. Low optical zoom. Long shutter lag. Poor low-light performance. Proprietary batteries that require travelling with a charger. Lack of a viewfinder. Bulkiness. Poor image quality. And the list goes on. Not to mention that with the speed at which digital technology is evolving, whatever I choose today will be obsolete by next year.

I figured I’d have to compromise, and narrowed it down to a few cameras with flaws I figured I could live with. But when I think about it, I don’t have to live with any of those shortcomings at all! I can just buy another film camera and get everything I want – and for much less money, too.

So is digital really all it’s cracked up to be? Or is it kind of like the Emperor’s New Clothes, where film is still much better but nobody is willing to admit it? I can’t help but wonder.