tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6741926061760780672024-03-13T23:15:39.326-04:00Thinking for FreeA blog on skepticism, religion and atheism; by a vegetable alkaloid, an extinct shelled cephalopod, and a (deceased) Siamese cat.Kizhe the Couch Czarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04046357500651886319noreply@blogger.comBlogger175125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-3066234291759619092012-06-15T23:41:00.002-04:002012-06-15T23:41:54.600-04:00FarewellIf there was a Grand Old Man of the talk.origins Usenet group, it would have been Richard Harter. He was a fount of knowledge and wit, a consummate punster, and a thoroughly decent human being. The news that he <a href="http://www.familyfuneralhome.net/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1461087&fh_id=10936">passed away in April</a> has been slow to filter out, bringing shock and sadness to current and former Howler Monkeys. Perhaps his best memorial is his own <a href="http://home.tiac.net/~cri/index.html">sprawling and chaotic website</a>.
Tonight we donned our official University of Ediacara T-shirts, poured two glasses of Innis & Gunn, and drank a toast to Richard's memory:
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UUV7NjBYIWo/T9wAOvqrrMI/AAAAAAAAAWg/nOcYPfP56Sg/s1600/DSC_0309.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="214" width="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UUV7NjBYIWo/T9wAOvqrrMI/AAAAAAAAAWg/nOcYPfP56Sg/s320/DSC_0309.JPG" /></a>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-26735913699264914222011-08-16T08:34:00.004-04:002011-08-16T08:39:54.832-04:00Where have all the bloggers gone?For those of you who might have come here from <a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/kitteh-contest-kizhe/">Why Evolution is True</a>, you know where Kizhe has gone. As for Theo Bromine and Eamon Knight, we are now blogging for CFI Ottawa: <a href="blog.cfiottawa.com">blog.cfiottawa.com</a>Theo Brominehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14078583453130339726noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-24673520735535993612010-08-12T22:58:00.005-04:002011-08-03T20:37:08.479-04:00Hey, we're almost famous!My wife just ran across this YouTube video from <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/theyre-so-cute-when-they-play-science-museum-part-1/">last year's foray</a> to Ken Ham's Kook House. The young guy is Derek Rogers, who got kicked out of the place (well, sort of: he got hassled by Security as we were walking through the exit hall anyway) for wearing an atheist bus T-shirt, then for expressing an opinion on the KHKH in the hearing of some tender Christian ears. PZ Myers is to Derek's right; we are right of PZ. Theo manages to make a few intelligent remarks while I lurk in the background grinning foolishly.<br /><br /><object width="427" height="227"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/A4ThvM9BKZU?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/A4ThvM9BKZU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="427" height="227"></embed></object>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-78558714737981621042010-03-20T00:05:00.005-04:002010-03-20T00:55:30.091-04:00Orion's High in the Southwest Sky<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Orion_3008_huge.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 177px; height: 262px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Orion_3008_huge.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />....as the song says. Except last week, when we were in Buenos Aires on vacation (short version: we got a cheap opportunity to spend a week in an exotic-sounding place, so we took it). And one clear night it occurred to me to have a look at the southern stars. Which was kind of hard, being in a big city with tall buildings and light pollution, but I managed to find <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28constellation%29">Orion</a> pretty quickly -- only somewhat higher in the sky than I'm used to <span style="font-style: italic;">and upside down</span>. And of course Orion is closely followed to the southeast by his hunting dog, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_Major">Canis Major</a>, with the star Sirius -- the brightest star in the sky, and easily visible even through the city's sky glow.<br /><br />So far, these are still things visible from southern Ontario where I've lived my whole life, just shifted to an unfamiliar angle (Buenos Aires is at 35 degrees south latitude). But continuing a little further south from Sirius I found another bright star: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopus">Canopus</a>, or Alpha <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_%28constellation%29">Carinae</a>. At -52 degrees declination, it is never visible from home.<br /><br />We spent a while mucking with Google Sky and trying to find a spot with a good southern horizon to check out the circumpolar stars, but never managed to identify anything. Unlike the case in the northern sky, there aren't a lot of bright stars around the south celestial pole, and it's too hard to make out constellations when you can't see a big swath of sky all at once. So we contented ourselves with having "bagged" Canopus.<br /><br />Back home, I went for a walk about 9pm the other night -- and there was Orion back where he usually is, half-way up the sky, and with his sword hanging <span style="font-weight: bold;">below</span> his belt. And for some reason, more than any amount of exotic architecture, foreign money, or a different language, that made me realize that I'd been to a far-off land.Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-65242687765937742282010-01-20T01:00:00.002-05:002010-01-20T01:00:07.306-05:00Best. Rebuttal. Ever.....of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation">Fallacy of the Golden Mean</a>:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://xkcd.com/690/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 363px; height: 356px;" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/semicontrolled_demolition.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-39195713004224718482010-01-19T19:25:00.004-05:002010-01-19T19:37:20.353-05:00Origin of Species: The Chick FlickJust joking! <span style="font-style: italic;">Creation</span> is <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/movie-review-creation/">much better than that</a>. "Skeptical" Jon Abrams <a href="http://www.skepticnorth.com/2010/01/review-of-movie-creation.html">thinks so too</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/S1ZQItwiOlI/AAAAAAAAAWE/2BY9lLZNaQ4/s1600-h/creation-poster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/S1ZQItwiOlI/AAAAAAAAAWE/2BY9lLZNaQ4/s400/creation-poster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428614511494052434" border="0" /></a><br />Minor historical gripes: Annie was not the Darwin's first child, but the second. And she died in 1851, while the bulk of the movie's plot clearly takes place in 1858 and 1859, with the arrival of Wallace's letter precipitating the completion of <span style="font-style: italic;">Origin of Species</span>. Was Darwin really a cranky hysterical for seven long years? I know, time gets compressed in Movieland....Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-89734354831505020892010-01-14T11:26:00.004-05:002010-01-15T09:55:17.229-05:00Ken Ham: Liar, Hypocrite and Hate-Monger.Ken Ham <a href="http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2010/01/13/a-meaningless-atheist-convention/">doesn't trust us</a>:<br /><blockquote><p>The Scripture tells us [atheists] “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1). Basically it comes down to the fact that they don’t want to have to answer to anyone—they want to set their own rules. They generally want to abort babies if they want or make marriage whatever they want to make it to be (or reject it altogether). They want to do what is “right” in their own eyes! Thus, a Creator who owns them, to whom they owe their existence, and against whom they have rebelled, is anathema to them!</p> <p>It baffles the mind as to why these atheists even bother to try to aggressively convert people to their meaningless religion—after all, what’s the point? The only reason they would even bother is if they are engaged in a spiritual battle. Otherwise they wouldn’t care. They know in their hearts there is a God, and they are deliberately suppressing that, as the Scripture so clearly tells us.</p><p>[.....]<br /></p>I’m sure most of you realize that you often can’t trust what atheists say. After all, if there is no absolute authority, there is no basis for right or wrong (just one’s own opinion). Thus, atheists can say whatever they want—even if it is not the truth.</blockquote>Dear Ham-head: I've read your website. I've been in your joke of a museum. I even exchanged brief words with you, some years ago. Substitute "creationist" for "atheist" in the last paragraph above and then it might be somewhere in the same ballpark as the truth. You wouldn't know truth if it ran over you on the Interstate.<br /><br />And while I'm on the subject of Christian douchebags, I may as well as join the chorus pointing out that <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/a-dispicable-madman/">Pat Robertson is an evil old man</a> whose God is created very much in his own image.Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-90761766042615155342010-01-14T11:22:00.001-05:002010-01-14T11:25:55.339-05:00Chronology of a ColdDay 1: You feel like you're coming down with something.<br />Day 2: You definitely have a cold.<br />Day 3: You feel like you're gonna die.<br />Day 4: You wish you'd just hurry up and die already.<br />Day 5: You realize you're not going to die.<br />Day 6: You start feeling better.<br />Day 7: You're mostly better.<br />Day 8: Back in the pink of health.<br /><br />Currently working on Day 5.....Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-84880327355720422952009-12-31T10:57:00.003-05:002009-12-31T11:13:48.482-05:002009 in ReviewActually, this isn't, but that's what you're supposed to write on New Year's Eve, so stickler for tradition that I am....<br /><br />I/we are obviously not the world's most prolix bloggers -- this post will be #37 for the year. I'm a dreadfully slow essayist, and have other hobbies. And it doesn't help when some of your output goes to another blog, in this case the <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/">Humanist Association of Ottawa</a> (to which I really also ought to contribute more). Posts that went there and not here this year were:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">They're So Cute When They Play "Science Museum"</span>: <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/theyre-so-cute-when-they-play-science-museum-part-1/">part 1</a>, <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/theyre-so-cute-when-they-play-science-museum-part-2/">part 2</a>, <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/they%E2%80%99re-so-cute-when-they-play-%E2%80%9Cscience-museum%E2%80%9D-part-3/">part 3</a>; a series about our visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky back in August, in company of PZ Myers, Hemant Mehta, Ed Kagan and about 300 others. There is actually a Part 4, currently bogged down in the edit space.<br /><br />A post-event followup to <a href="http://thinkingforfree.blogspot.com/2009/09/todays-day.html">Blasphemy Day</a>: <a href="http://humanistottawaweb.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/blasphemy-free-speech-or-obnoxiosity/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Blasphemy: Free Speech or Obnoxiosity?</span></a>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-10838362141510984712009-12-25T00:55:00.013-05:002009-12-25T01:15:16.784-05:00Merry Newtonmass 2009Today marks the 367th anniversary of the birth of Sir Isaac Newton, on 25 December 1642. Here is our traditional Newtonmass carol, with a new verse for 2009:<br /><br /><a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SzRUDMd_1PI/AAAAAAAAA6I/7kwtRF6tQAk/s1600-h/newton.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 100px; height: 80px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SzRUDMd_1PI/AAAAAAAAA6I/7kwtRF6tQAk/s200/newton.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5419048665496933618" border="0" /></a><br /><p>God rest ye merry, physicists<br />Let nothing you dismay.<br />Remember Isaac Newton<br />was born on Christmas Day!<br />His gravity and calculus and "f" equals "m" "a"!<br />Oh, pillars of physics and math, physics and math,<br />Oh, pillars of physics and math!<br /><sp><br /></p> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SzRUfnHym8I/AAAAAAAAA6Q/pFMl1IHT-uk/s1600-h/gravitywell.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 120px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SzRUfnHym8I/AAAAAAAAA6Q/pFMl1IHT-uk/s200/gravitywell.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5419049153687886786" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="padding-left: 5px;"><br />A factor of big G - the same<br />for flea and giant star.<br />Then multiply the masses<br />and divide by square of "r".<br />The force that keeps us on the earth<br />and orbits moons afar!<br />Oh, pillars of physics and math, physics and math,<br />Oh, pillars of physics and math!</p><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SzRVe4AMfMI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/cyIw8r2JS88/s1600-h/Calculus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SzRVe4AMfMI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/cyIw8r2JS88/s200/Calculus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5419050240551189698" border="0" /></a><br />Now, calculus is math for those<br />who change things bit by bit.*<br />To figure out derivatives<br />and get the curve to fit.<br />Then integrate and you can find the area under it!<br />Oh, pillars of physics and math, physics and math,<br />Oh, pillars of physics and math!<br /><br /><em>*little bits, not computer data bits</em><br /><br />[Yes, Newton was something of a religious nut, but nonetheless significantly advanced humankind's understanding of our universe.]Theo Brominehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14078583453130339726noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-74719909096358878582009-12-18T16:25:00.005-05:002009-12-18T16:53:53.459-05:00How We Are Celebrating the SeasonMy grown sons showed up last weekend, along with the partner of the older one and a college <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.keyourcars.com/wp-content/uploads/kobold_spot_art_by_d_mac1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 235px; height: 128px;" src="http://www.keyourcars.com/wp-content/uploads/kobold_spot_art_by_d_mac1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>buddy of the younger one. So we spent a couple of evenings playing Dungeons & Dragons.<br /><br />'Cuz hacking through a cavern full of kobolds with edged weapons is such a great, family-friendly activity, no?<br /><br />And at a certain moment, a sacred rite was enacted. Dice were rolled. Tables were consulted. Libations were poured. Libations were quaffed. And poured again. And quaffed again. And poured....um where was I? Oh yes: Candles were lit. And one member of the party intoned an arcane incantation in the ancient holy language of her ancestors. And this was the scene:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/Syv26kISgtI/AAAAAAAAAVo/XDwNaUe358Q/s1600-h/DSC_0177crop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 285px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/Syv26kISgtI/AAAAAAAAAVo/XDwNaUe358Q/s400/DSC_0177crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416694462834442962" border="0" /></a><br />So like, Happy (belated) Chanukah, eh?Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-52912010795092341182009-12-02T23:39:00.019-05:002009-12-12T15:33:01.233-05:00And then they go and spoil it....It's that time of year again. I mean of course, the season when we wish each other good cheer and good fortune...in ways which seem to be increasingly fraught with anxiety for some people. There's so many choices of occasion to observe: Christmas, Solstice, New Year, Chanukah, Kwanzaa...what to say?<br /><br />Now personally, I don't much care what people wish me. Christmas as it has come down to us is a syncretistic mish-mash of ancient European pagan winter solstice rites, Christian legends about the Nativity and Saint Nicholas, heavy overlays of Victorian sentimentalism, hours of music of highly variable quality, and a good helping of modern commercial consumerism. If you want an excuse to party this time of year, there's plenty in there to pick from. Thus my agnostic family-of-origin celebrated a basic Western-cultural sort of Christmas with a tree, presents (whether they came from Santa or Mom and Dad was often somewhat ambiguous), carols on the stereo, and a big dinner with friends. I have happy memories of all that, and tried to give my kids some of the same.<br /><br />So: "Merry Christmas" works for me, both personally and with respect to my ancestral culture. "Happy Chanukah" picks up my wife's ancestry, so that's good too. But in the unlikely event someone wishes me "Happy Kwanzaa", I won't know what's expected of me (aside from a non-plussed "Um...sure...and the same to you"). I won't be offended (it's too small a thing to get worked up over, and presumably the speaker means well), but I really won't understand what I've been wished. If I respond in kind, am I comitting myself to something? It would feel socially awkward. So it would seem, at the least, courtesy to bestow good wishes in the name of a festival the recipient actually celebrates -- in much the same way as you try to pronounce their names correctly.<br /><br />Now imagine you're an overworked, underpaid retail employee trying to be polite to (frequently obnoxious) customers during the busiest time of the year. And as part of that you're required negotiate the mine-field of cultural sensitivities contained in an apparently simple greeting. Some stores try to finesse this by mandating the generic "Happy Holidays", but somehow it doesn't have the same ring to it. If only you could read minds....<br /><br />....and someone has come up with what, at first sight, seems like an <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SyPqlm222hI/AAAAAAAAAVY/6n6Y6njH9fM/s1600-h/XmasBadge.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 188px; height: 227px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SyPqlm222hI/AAAAAAAAAVY/6n6Y6njH9fM/s320/XmasBadge.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414429108836162066" border="0" /></a>excellent idea: sell little buttons bearing the reassuring message "<a href="http://www.wmamc.com/">It's OK: Wish Me A Merry Christmas</a>". I like it: it cues the poor store clerk on your preferred salutation, in a light, friendly way. I can see a whole line of these, for Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, etc, etc. It could be great ecumenical outpouring of mutual respect and understanding! Peace on earth and goodwill to men! Why, one might almost say that it's, well, very much in the spirit of Christmas....<br /><br />....until you go read the rest of the website. "Happy Holidays"? Did you think it was just a way to be culturally inclusive? (Or even, just a convenient abbreviation signifying Christmas, New Year, and the week in between?) Guess again: it's the "<a href="http://www.wmamc.com/attackonchristmas/index.html">....forces of darkness that are attempting to silence the good news....</a>" (cue <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txo06c1k9sk">scarey music</a>). And I bet you thought "Merry Christmas" was just a customary way of expressing hope that the recipient's last week or so of the year would be a safe and happy experience of spending time with family, attending congenial social gatherings, relaxing at home, and maybe getting some cool new toys, right? Nope. What you're really doing is "....telling them that there is good news and that the God of the universe has put into motion a wonderful plan to offer them salvation...[It] is indeed nothing less than the first step in opening a door to offer someone salvation." Well, golly: all that time when I was growing up godless, I never realized I was actually preaching the occasional Gospel sermon all through December. Who knew?<br /><br />Of course, no good evangelistic crusade would be complete without a little Shoppin' For Jesus:<blockquote><p>[Wearing the button] tells people you are not just shopping for a winter festival, but what you are buying is celebrating your Lord’s birth.</p></blockquote>Which irresistibly reminds me of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesthurman/3526621651/">this fleeting shot</a> from Terry Gilliam's dark comedy <span style="font-style: italic;">Brazil</span>:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SyL-JlCBvdI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/dxhlyBtviFw/s1600-h/ConsumersForChrist.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 223px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SyL-JlCBvdI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/dxhlyBtviFw/s320/ConsumersForChrist.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414169142565649874" border="0" /></a><br />Seriously, shopping as sacrament? Only in America.... Whereas Jesus cast the money-changers out of the temple, these folks want to bring the temple in to the shopping mall -- Baptisms in the Jacuzzi store? Men's Bible Study in Home Depot; Women's in the Kitchen & Bath department? (For lulz, check out the joy on the "<a href="http://www.wmamc.com/millionbuttongoal/thankyou_retailers.html#kudos">Kudos</a>" page, in honour of adverts for the "Christmas Super Saturday sale" and other great proclamations of faith).<br /><br />And, Mr. Merchant, if you dare wish us "Happy Holidays", we will be <a href="http://www.wmamc.com/forms/2009StoreManagerLetter.pdf">offended (PDF)</a>, offended I say! Because the phrase "Merry Christmas" is very very special, and the organizers of this campaign want everyone saying it to each other, all the time (but especially in stores):<br /><blockquote>As the cycle of wishing and being wished a “Merry Christmas” begins, the forces of darkness in our nation will be affected. Light will be proclaimed. Hope will be announced, and the spiritual atmosphere <u>will</u> <u>be</u> <u>changed</u>.</blockquote>Kind of like Harry Potter casting a spell, only you don't need to wave a wand to make the magic happen.<br /><br />Like I say, on the whole I don't care how people choose to express good wishes to me. But if I get the feeling that there's more going on than a simple exchange of human goodwill, that there's an agenda being pushed, I am....inclined to push back. So on the off chance that someone wearing one of those buttons walks up to me, says "Merry Christmas", and stands there expectantly, I shall be very tempted to paste on my biggest smile, and reply in my loudest, cheerfullest voice:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SyP8M2t929I/AAAAAAAAAVg/oclYRNIuWbA/s1600-h/SYT.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 92px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SyP8M2t929I/AAAAAAAAAVg/oclYRNIuWbA/s400/SYT.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414448474806410194" border="0" /></a><br />...because some people really, really need to get over themselves.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Hat tip: <a href="http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/12/01/i-said-wish-me-a-merry-christmas-dammit/">Friendly Atheist</a></span></span>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-80798380615968729922009-10-29T18:57:00.007-04:002009-10-29T19:14:42.585-04:00Seeing the ForrestReaders of talk.origins may have run across a poster called Richard Forrest, a British palaeontologist <a href="http://www.plesiosaur.com/more.php">specializing in plesiosaurs</a>, and also author of a hilariously, um, <span style="font-style: italic;">revisionist </span><a href="http://www.plesiosaur.com/scribblings/index.php">history of evolutionary science</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46611000/jpg/_46611536_liopleurodon_466_200.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 387px; height: 165px;" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46611000/jpg/_46611536_liopleurodon_466_200.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Now you can see the man himself, enthusing over the skull of a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8322000/8322629.stm">monster pliosaur recently discovered in Dorset</a>.Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-91982459895387741142009-10-24T23:11:00.008-04:002009-10-24T23:58:58.245-04:00That's a lotta money!I learned a new word yesterday: "yotta". Strictly speaking, it's not a word; it's the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotta-">SI prefix indicating 10 rasied to the power of 24</a> (abbr: "Y"). That's a thousand times bigger than the largest SI prefix I previously knew about (zeta), and is currently the largest official prefix. Really, it's a useful unit to have. For example, the power output of the Sun is 383YW. By comparison, the province of Ontario consumes about 25GW on a hot day when everyone is running their air conditioners. Which means the Sun is equivalent to about 15 peta-Ontarios.<br /><br />Borderline-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome">Asperger</a> geeks like to know these things. We'd be loads of fun at cocktail parties, except we never go to any because we hate people. (That, and no one ever invites us more than once. I don't care; you're all boring. Yes, all of you.)<br /><br />The way I found this out is weird: it seems that, in what has to be <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SuPIS-cs1CI/AAAAAAAAAU0/yZckSUelyL0/s1600-h/moneyshot1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 196px; height: 131px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SuPIS-cs1CI/AAAAAAAAAU0/yZckSUelyL0/s400/moneyshot1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396377006846563362" border="0" /></a>the record-holder for ridiculous damages claims, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8318626.stm">someone is suing the Bank of America</a> for 1784 billion trillion dollars. Yes, that's 1.784 yotta-bux.<br /><br />That's a lotta bux (as in: waaaay more than are in the picture at right).<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >OK, just to raise the intelligence quotient of this post above of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yocto">yocto</a>-level, here's Monty Python's Money Song. Enjoy:</span><br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sor9GzivGbk&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sor9GzivGbk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-81479770089389957232009-10-22T22:40:00.007-04:002009-10-22T23:06:34.682-04:00A Day of Two BooksSo, I'm on the bus this morning, reading Dawkins' <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1416594787/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256265829&sr=8-1"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Greatest Show on Earth</span></a>, and he spends a couple of pages explaining how, before Darwin, everyone thought species had essences; they were natural kinds, which of course makes it very hard to imagine how one species could turn into another. But Darwin showed us how to think of species in terms of populations containing lots of variation, and the average of the distribution can shift over time until it's so different we no longer call it the same species. This narrative about how the idea of "species" changed (as opposed to the species themselves changing, if you get my meaning -- like, I'm talking in a meta-level here...oh, never mind), Dawkins credits to biologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Mayr">Ernst Mayr</a>, who explained it all to us back in the 1950s.<br /><br />Then the bus gets to work, and I spend a few hours doing workish things.<br /><br />And when I return home this evening, there is awaiting me a padded envelope which opens to reveal <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Species-History-John-S-Wilkins/dp/0520260856/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256266400&sr=1-2">this book</a>:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SuEbOC6t3RI/AAAAAAAAAUs/9qDVUVPcurI/s1600-h/9780520260856.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 265px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SuEbOC6t3RI/AAAAAAAAAUs/9qDVUVPcurI/s400/9780520260856.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5395623756681829650" border="0" /></a><br />...by <a href="http://evolvingthoughts.net/">this guy</a>.<br /><br />And of course John wastes no time (as in: right in the Prologue, before we even get to Chapter The First) telling us that Mayr got it all wrong, in fact the whole book is about how wrong he was, almost no one was an essentialist, ever.<br /><br />It's fun when that kind of thing happens.Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-3851605376970062862009-09-30T08:00:00.000-04:002009-09-30T08:00:04.533-04:00Today's the Day....which is to say, my mother's 89th birthday. Well, except that she sort of missed the occasion by three years and a few months. So I guess that means she won't be wanting any cake or candles.<br /><br />What, you thought I meant <a href="http://www.blasphemyday.com/">some other kind of day</a>? Well, Mom was never much of a blasphemer. I mean, she was an agnostic all her adult life, which I guess counts for something in that department. But she was really a rather quiet, reserved woman. About the closest she ever got to overt blasphemy was that, in moments of frustration, she would mutter "Damn!" under her breath (which these days, hardly counts as blasphemy at all). And that's probably about the limit for an English girl of her generation.<br /><br />Personally, I'm not big into explicit blasphemy. Even my hammer-on-thumb expletives tend to draw on the lexicon of bodily function, rather than theology. So I'm a bit ambivalent about Blasphemy Day. Somehow, it smacks of the big boys on the playground teaching some little kid all the naughty words. To me, just saying "God doesn't exist" remains a quite sufficient blasphemy -- what else needs to be said?<br /><br />But my ambivalence goes deeper than that.<br /><br />One chief aim of Blasphemy Day is to make it safe to diss religion. Trouble is, I've not personally spent much time in any space where religion-dissing wasn't safe. To start with, my family of origin was agnostic. My parents didn't run down religion, but they thought it was false, and told me so. When I hit the cynical adolescent stage, religion was certainly among my targets. And then when I did get religion myself, it was one that in the local context was a somewhat eccentric minority sect -- and I do this while I'm in an age group that punishes non-conformity (not that I ever had much chance of being part of the in-crowd: I was a hopelessly geeky misfit, even without the religion). Then I go off to university, and where I am conspicuously <span style="font-weight: bold;">not </span>into certain prominent facets of dorm life. So <span style="font-weight: bold;">my </span>religion, at least, was never quite respectable. A few years later I finally get into a more mainstream religion -- and soon after that, I discover Usenet, where absolutely <span style="font-weight: bold;">nothing</span> is sacred, or off-limits.<br /><br />So for most of my Christian period, I seemed to have a talent for innocently wandering into free-fire zones.<br /><br />Now I'm an atheist -- and therefore part of another minority religious group (using "religious" here in a loose sense). And yeah: Danish Mohamed cartoons, rampant Islamism, thin-skinned Irishmen passing anti-blasphemy statutes, the <a href="http://edwinkagin.blogspot.com/2008/11/smalkowski-case-settled-in-oklahoma.html">Smallkowski affair</a> and all the other small-minded small-town bigotry that percolates out of the American hinterland by way of the internet these days -- I know all that, but very little of it is here, in Ottawa, in <span style="font-weight: bold;">my </span>face. So let's not overstate the case: in this particular neck of the woods, we have it pretty easy.<br /><br />It may be that my very first personal encounter with the Thou Shalt Respect Religion meme was in the context of the Ottawa Atheist Bus Campaign, in which several city councillors thought that their <a href="http://thinkingforfree.blogspot.com/2009/02/ad-omnibus.html">personal offense</a> at the rather mild advertisement was grounds for<a href="http://thinkingforfree.blogspot.com/2009/03/god-and-city-council.html"> controlling other people's speech rights</a>. And that experience made me realize something: we don't, in pluralistic, liberal urban Ontario, go in for the kind of bare-knuckle bigotry of some places.What we've done instead is, in a very polite-Canadian way, to bury the religion debate and agree not to discuss it. There may not be a lot of overt piety in the Canadian character, but there's a lot of Dennett's "faith in faith" -- it's a Good Thing, so don't question it too hard. That's Not Nice. Running the bus ads broke that taboo -- hence the reaction.<br /><br />So a few of us (I don't know how many; I'm not planning it) are apparently celebrating Blasphemy Day by going downtown tonight wearing appropriately irreverent T-shirts. I'm going, because I think that taboo should stay broken. Because I think the thin-skinned types who wanted to squelch the bus ads should continue to be offended and uncomfortable, until they get over their own self-importance. Because I think unbelief should advertise itself the same as belief does, daily, on every corner where there is a church or mosque or synagogue. Because I think that, opening that space for out-and-explicit unbelief here helps to open it everywhere.<br /><br />Because I think.Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-80199390897748379912009-09-20T10:12:00.009-04:002009-09-20T12:02:59.569-04:00Postscript on Felines and FictionPeople (particularly data-entry staff at veterinary clinics) would sometimes ask where we got the name of our <a href="http://thinkingforfree.blogspot.com/2009/09/passing.html">late pet</a> from (usually after they've asked how to spell it, or if they encountered the written form first, how to pronounce it. It's: KEE-zhay). Classical music lovers generally recognize the reference to Sergei Prokofiev's <span style="font-style: italic;">Lieutenant Kizhe</span> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_Kij%C3%A9_%28Prokofiev%29">orchestral suite</a>, and are further aware that the music was originally written for the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025671/">1934 film</a>, which in turn is based on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_Kij%C3%A9">the novella</a> by Yuri Tynyanov.<br /><br />The action of the story revolves around the efforts of the Russian Imperial court to hide from the vain, mercurial <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_I_of_Russia">Tsar Paul I</a> the fact that he has made a mistake: that the name and persona of "Lieutenant Kizhe" is the result of a scribal error. The afore-linked Wikipedia article adequately describes the plot of the novella (the movie changes a few non-essential things), so I won't belabor the details. Though intended as a satire on the Tsarist bureacracy, one can't help wondering if there is not also a subtle jibe being levelled against the Stalinist regime under which both the book and film were made.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrZMFGfNidI/AAAAAAAAAUc/w8gaqLNtcAo/s1600-h/375px-Kije.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 195px; height: 312px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrZMFGfNidI/AAAAAAAAAUc/w8gaqLNtcAo/s400/375px-Kije.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383574055092586962" border="0" /></a>We discovered only yesterday that the film (with English subtitles) is now available at the <a href="http://www.archive.org/details.php?identifier=LieutenantKizhe_0">Internet Archive</a> and <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5960899000870748608#">Google Video</a>. (I think it's been a while since we last searched for it). So last night, in memory of our furry friend, we hooked up the laptop to the TV and sat down to watch....<br />I'm a lousy movie critic: about the best I can manage is "Liked it" or "That sucked". But this flick is definitely the former. It is made early enough in the "talkies" era to have preserved some of the silent-film propensity for sight-gags. For example, the prison commandant, presented with the non-existent Kizhe for incarceration, with perfect gravity searches the ground around the guards for this "confidential prisoner, who has no shape". No dialog is spoken, or needed. Later, the entire sequence of Kizhe's wedding comprises about 10 minutes of high absurdity. While there is understated slapstick, it never reaches the over-the-top level of the Keystone Cops. And behind it all is Prokofiev's music; the elements of what later became an orchestral classic.<br /><br />So: it's a quirky kind of closure. We've loved the music for years (enough to name our seventh cat after it), and been fascinated by the back-story, so it was great to at last see that story played out. And we learned one detail about the doubly-fictional Lieutenant, which is perhaps a fitting memorial for the cat who lived in a non-believing household; who always knew what he wanted, and always let you know about it. From the film's closing soliloquy -- a kind of reverse eulogy on his now-deceased officer -- delivered by the Tsar:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrZMFTO34RI/AAAAAAAAAUk/Oj11z2D1_oY/s1600-h/FreeThinker.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 391px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrZMFTO34RI/AAAAAAAAAUk/Oj11z2D1_oY/s400/FreeThinker.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383574058513719570" border="0" /></a>Good-bye, little friend.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">(Movie poster from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kije.jpg">WikiMedia Commons</a>)</span></span>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-605181716404371552009-09-17T22:14:00.007-04:002009-09-28T23:20:42.312-04:00A PassingWith sadness, we announce the loss earlier today of our companion of the last eight years, and occasional co-blogger, Lieutenant Kizhe the Siamese cat. For the past four months Kizhe had been suffering from a series of stubborn bacterial infections and an associated inflammatory condition, which eventually progressed to the point of open sores. Kizhe endured one surgery and several rounds of antibiotics and steroid treatment, however the sores were not healing and he was growing progressively weaker and more anemic. It became apparent that he was uncomfortable and that recovery was unlikely, hence The Decision was made. He was euthanized at home this morning, on his favorite chair in the sunroom, surrounded by the sounds and smells of the backyard. This picture was taken a few days ago:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrMAnMooBvI/AAAAAAAAAUM/p9yQcs31Dw8/s1600-h/DSC_9607cropped.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 182px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrMAnMooBvI/AAAAAAAAAUM/p9yQcs31Dw8/s400/DSC_9607cropped.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382646653044393714" border="0" /></a>Many thanks go to the vets and staff of the <a href="http://www.cathospitals.net/Merivale.html">Merivale Cat Hospital</a>, in particular to Dr. Emma Thom who spared no effort in her attempts to diagnose Kizhe's condition, including consulting with experts around the world via the internet, and also to veterinary technician Jessica who assisted Dr. Thom with the euthanasia.<br /><br />Kizhe in younger days, contemplating the possibilities of the internet:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrMAnb7kN3I/AAAAAAAAAUU/Ibr5cWLV-2g/s1600-h/DCP_1000.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SrMAnb7kN3I/AAAAAAAAAUU/Ibr5cWLV-2g/s400/DCP_1000.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382646657150367602" border="0" /></a>(And you thought this post was going to be about that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Travers_%28singer%29">folk singer</a>, right? Yeah, she'll be missed too)<br />===================================================================<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Update, 28 September:</span> The necropsy results are back, and contrary to biopsies taken back in May, it was cancer. Specifically, a rare form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphoma_in_animals">lymphosarcoma</a>. Apparently, experts all over the continent are fascinated by Kizhe's case, and papers may even get written on it. Being science geeks, we're actually rather...comforted? gratified? at having managed, at least, to contribute something to the vet-med literature....Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-89571393747687842752009-07-26T20:33:00.002-04:002009-07-26T21:02:42.767-04:00Cosmic Coincidence?So last Monday, y'all got drunk and celebrated the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, right? (OK, maybe not the drunken part). But how many of you knew that the moon landing occurred 25 years to the day after the unsuccessful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot">assassination and coup attempt against Adolf Hitler</a>, carried out by some of his senior officers? There was even a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985699/">movie</a> made about it last year, but I don't think I'll be seeing it -- I'm not sure I could suppress my gag reflex at seeing that much of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise#IAS_Freedom_Medal_of_Valor_ceremony_video">Tom "I love Scientology" Cruise</a>.<br /><br />Now the second part of this coincidence is that, exactly 25 years <span style="font-weight: bold;">after</span> the moon landing (well, plus or minus a couple of days, because it didn't happen all at once), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoemaker-Levy_9">Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9</a> impacted on Jupiter. On that occasion, I could almost persuade myself that I could make out a black blemish on the planet's face through my 4.25-inch Newtonian and the July heat shimmer. Or I may have been hallucinating: my keenest memory of that event is trying to stand very still and steady at the eyepiece, on a hot humid night, while feeling about a million pin-pricks in my legs as every mosquito for miles around attacked the only human in Kanata insane enough to be outside at 4am.<br /><br />As a postscript we got a repeat performance this year: just one day before the 40th anniversary of Apollo (and therefore the 15th anniversary of SL9), <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/07/090722_jupiter_update.shtml">something else biggish hit Jupiter</a>.<br /><br />What does this all mean? <span style="font-weight: bold;">Absolutely nothing</span>, except for the human tendency to see patterns (mostly by tossing out all the data that doesn't fit) where there aren't any.Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-61183320858315595112009-07-20T16:17:00.002-04:002009-07-20T16:17:00.271-04:00One Small Step....<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">If I've done this right, this post will appear at 20 July at 20:17 UTC -- 40 years to the moment from when a manned spacecraft from Earth first touched down on the surface of another world. </span><br /></span><br />I was 12 years old and my family was on vacation, camping at <a href="http://www.nps.gov/romo/">Rocky Mountain National Park</a> in Colorado, right up by the continental divide. We had been into town for something -- I don't recall what, maybe a restaurant dinner; I don't even recall which town -- and on our return in the evening, stopped at a little country store to pick up whatever. I stayed in the car while my parents went inside.<br /><br />A few moments later my Dad re-emerged, beckoning frantically at me to come inside. In the store, I found a crowd of people gathered around a dutch door at the back that gave into the owner's living quarters. The upper half was open, and everyone was watching a small black-and-white TV perched on the kitchen counter. On that screen was Neil Armstrong taking his first few steps on the moon. Not that I could see much: by the time the low-bandwidth lunar signal had been received, converted to broadcast format (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#Lunar_surface_operations">by pointing a TV camera at the slow-scan monitor in Mission Control!</a>), been broadcast by the networks, filtered through the local weather (as I recall it was raining, maybe even thundering) and made its way to the rabbit ears of this little receiver way up in the Rockies, all that was left was a bunch of monochrome blobs that moved every so often.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/R9XBAxdKVRE&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/R9XBAxdKVRE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Back at camp, I fell asleep in our tent trailer that night listening to the radio coverage. Before turning in I made a last visit to the washroom. At our altitude it was pretty cold for July; but the weather had cleared and the sky was crystal clear as only a high mountain sky, far from any city, can be. The moon was full and dazzlingly bright in my memory.<br /><br />And a 12 year old boy looked up and realized: that's not just a light in the sky. <span style="font-weight: bold;">It's a world -- and there is a man walking on it!</span>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-30068530896181569662009-07-18T10:19:00.002-04:002009-07-18T10:25:42.370-04:00Way Cool....This image, from the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter, of the Apollo 14 landing site, in which you can see the LM, an instrument package, and <span style="font-style: italic;">the footpath where the astronauts walked</span>:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SmHaujppgGI/AAAAAAAAAUE/1fY3OJxn160/s1600-h/369228main_ap14labeled_540.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SmHaujppgGI/AAAAAAAAAUE/1fY3OJxn160/s400/369228main_ap14labeled_540.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359805524926365794" border="0" /></a>This and more NRO Apollo images <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html">here</a>.<br /><br />I wish there were more of those.Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-1832392633092849702009-07-17T18:46:00.005-04:002009-07-17T19:08:20.942-04:00Winnie the Pooh<a href="http://tuibguy.com/?p=1186">Mike</a> links to <a href="http://56755.blogspot.com/2009/07/rest-of-story.html">Trish</a> relating the story of the origin of Winnie-the-Pooh. While the bear was named after the city of Winnipeg, he (she?) actually came from <a href="http://www.whiteriver.ca/article/white-river-heritage-museum-123.asp">White River, Ontario</a>, which we passed through a few years back, in the course of circumnavigating Lake Superior. In the Museum there stands this wood carving of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_bear">Winnipeg the bear</a> and his owner, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Colebourn">Lt. Harry Colebourn</a>:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SmEDejQnevI/AAAAAAAAAT8/ZQhhQdBgaJc/s1600-h/DSC_2597.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SmEDejQnevI/AAAAAAAAAT8/ZQhhQdBgaJc/s400/DSC_2597.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359568854943496946" border="0" /></a>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-79380678905712708032009-07-08T14:24:00.005-04:002009-07-08T14:59:27.289-04:00Crackergate in Canada<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SlTsQkVOfFI/AAAAAAAAAjA/PQLKGZ_zKQk/s1600-h/the_brick_testament_-_the_last_supper_-_800x346.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 86px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Pca7EkdAdzA/SlTsQkVOfFI/AAAAAAAAAjA/PQLKGZ_zKQk/s200/the_brick_testament_-_the_last_supper_-_800x346.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356165626225130578" border="0" /></a><br />So, according to news reports (eg <a href="http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/722036">here </a>and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2009/07/08/harper-archbishop.html">here</a>), Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper has created a "scandal" by not properly taking communion at a Catholic funeral.<br /><br />Monsignor Brian Henneberry, vicar general and chancellor in the Diocese of Saint John, says that if Harper accepted the host but did not consume it, "It's worse than a faux pas, it's a scandal from the Catholic point of view."<br /><br />Amazingly, this puts me in the position of <span style="font-style: italic;">defending Stephen Harper </span>(yikes). But here's the thing: It is not up to Harper, even if he is Prime Minister, to be cognizant of the church rules for a church of which he is not a member - it is the height of arrogance for the Roman Catholic Church to have such an expectation. If the holy body of their Lord Jesus Christ was improperly handled, it is entirely the fault of the priests for not providing proper instruction (not to mention the fact that presumably they should have known that Harper was not a Catholic, so they should not have given him the wafer in the first place).<br /><br />[I am not, and never have been a Catholic, but I have been to a few Catholic masses, where, in preparation for Communion, the priest provides instructions indicating that the elements are only to be consumed by members of the Catholic Church, and inviting those who are ineligible to partake of the elements to fold their hands and receive a blessing from the priest instead. If the priest did not provide such instructions in this case, they have no one to blame but themselves.]Theo Brominehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14078583453130339726noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-5603489880999115782009-05-25T19:49:00.004-04:002009-05-25T21:26:46.156-04:00Compact Paradox?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/Shs0KiJmnVI/AAAAAAAAAT0/MbqDXCb-qNk/s1600-h/cfl.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/Shs0KiJmnVI/AAAAAAAAAT0/MbqDXCb-qNk/s400/cfl.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5339919138748276050" border="0" /></a><br />So: We're all replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents, thereby saving electricity, thereby reducing carbon emissions, thereby saving the planet, right?<br /><br />Or are we?<br /><br />A <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2009/05/weight_loss_light_bulbs_and_ca.php#comment-1655282">comment on another blog</a> prompted me to check that truism. The point is made that, during the heating season (which around here runs from about October through April, depending on how tolerant you are to wearing sweaters indoors) we derive some benefit from the waste heat of electrical appliances like light bulbs. If we switch to more efficient bulbs, that heat must be made up by the furnace, which is presumably burning a fossil fuel.<br /><br />So the question is: which is more efficient in terms of carbon emissions? Burning carbon-rich stuff for heat, or using electrical heat which includes a component generated from non-fossil sources (dams and nukes)?<br /><br />Let's do some arithmetic:<br /><br />I have a <a href="http://trane.com/Residential/Products/Furnaces/XV95-Furnaces">recent-model natural gas furnace</a> which is advertised to be better than 95% efficient (ie: out of every joule of heat generated in the burner, 0.95 joules winds up warming the house). How much carbon does my furnace emit to deliver, say, 1 megajoule of space heating? First, to get that 1 MJ delivered, we need to burn about 1.05 MJ worth of fuel. Natural gas is mostly methane, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion#Heat_of_combustion_tables">heat of combustion</a> of which is 55.5 MJ/kg, so that 1 MJ of heat-made-good requires 1.05/55.5*1000 = 19 grams of gas. Methane (CH<sub>4</sub>) has a molecular weight of 16, only 12 of which is carbon, so the net carbon emission is 14.2 grams.<br /><br />What about electrical heat?<br /><br />The biggest loss in thermal-source electrical generation is right at the turbine. The maximum theoretical efficiency of any apparatus that converts heat into work is limited by the temperature difference between the input and the output. Given available materials, this means that the process that turns boiling water into electricity can never be more than about 40% (and that's generous). Knock off a little for transmission losses, and let's say that the overall efficiency -- from burning the fuel to lighting the bulb -- is 35%. That looks pretty bad until you consider that, in a typical power grid not all the electricity comes from fossil sources. <a href="http://www.opg.com/power/">Ontario Power Generation</a> (to use the locally relevant example) gets only 27% of its power from fossil fuel plants (mostly coal, though with some contribution from oil or gas).<br /><br />(Aside: That OPG page is pretty cool. The big number at the right shows the amount of power currently being generated in the system, continuously updated. As I write, Ontario is running on about 11.5 gigawatts. During summer heat waves, it gets up around 25 GW or more. Clicking on the <a href="http://www.opg.com/power/hydro/">hydro</a>, <a href="http://www.opg.com/power/nuclear/">nuclear</a> and <a href="http://www.opg.com/power/fossil/">fossil</a> links at the left lets you see how much is being contributed by each source. Really, engineers are fascinated by this sort of thing. That, and my late father worked for OPG's predecessor Ontario Hydro, so I have a familial interest in the old place. I've been in some of those stations, when he would take me out on a job.)<br /><br />But back to the arithmetic: Anthracite coal yields 27MJ/kg when burned. So generating 1MJ of electricity emits (1/27)/35%*1000 = 106g of carbon. However, only 27% of OPG electricity comes from fossil sources, so we can discount that amount down to 28.6 grams.<br /><br />Which is still twice as much as just running my furnace. You'd have to be using a crappy old furnace that was only about 50% efficient to be as bad as electric heat. And in the summer of course, there's no question: every watt of heat you don't produce in the house is one watt your air conditioner doesn't have to scavenge up and move outside.<br /><br />Conclusion: Even when you allow for the space heating contribution of incandescents, compact fluorescent bulbs still win by a good margin.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">[Note: to keep it simple (translation: I'm too lazy to do all the research) I've ignored a lot of upstream carbon contributions here, such as: manufacturing light bulbs; building the different kinds of power plants; mining, processing and transporting coal or uranium. Also, the generation mix I used is the cumulative figure for 2007, which does not necessarily reflect what OPG might be running on a typical cold January night.]</span>Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-28522615994759697032009-05-14T18:48:00.005-04:002009-05-14T20:43:20.340-04:00Reboot the Franchise, Scotty!Phil Plait has written a much, much <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/05/08/ba-review-star-trek/">better review</a> of the new <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> movie (complete with astronomical notes), so go read his instead.<br /><br />You're still here? *sigh* Let's see what I can come up with. First, the obligatory warning:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SgyidRAivCI/AAAAAAAAATs/GpKiVt1hvy4/s1600-h/klingon30a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 180px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8ksa4rwsIcc/SgyidRAivCI/AAAAAAAAATs/GpKiVt1hvy4/s320/klingon30a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335818282192780322" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" ><del style="font-weight: bold;">KLINGONS</del><span style="font-weight: bold;"> SPOILERS OFF THE </span></span><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">STARBOARD BOW!</span></span><br /><br />What, <span style="font-style: italic;">still </span>here? OK, you asked for it:<br /><br />The Kirk character has a heavy whiff of Mary Sue about him -- what, from obnoxious, know-it-all cadet to captain of the Enterprise, just for saving Earth from destruction <span style="font-style: italic;">once</span>? Methinks he skipped about four ranks (and at least one more saving-everyone's-ass) there. Pity, too: it might have made the (inevitable) sequels more interesting to see him work his way up from Ensign through Lieutenant and Commander, before he gets to kick people out of the Big Chair whenever he wants to.<br /><br />Several of the supporting characters seem to be played for comedy -- caricatures, really, of their older counterparts on classic Trek (not that that cast didn't descend, at times, into self-parody, especially by the fourth or fifth movie).<br /><br />I'm also not entirely sure I approve of destroying Vulcan. I kept expecting them to fix the time-line and put everything back the way it was, allowing history to proceed along Canonical lines -- it was fairly late in the movie when I realized that, no, this is the new normal. Of course, Spock Prime knows about the supernova, giving them over a century to prepare to save Romulus (and thereby the villain's wife, Kirk's dad, Vulcan, and Spock's mom). Or as a commenter at Bad Astronomy pointed out: Nero the Romulan could have done the same thing, instead of going off on his mission of vengeance.<br /><br />I think time travel and its associated paradoxes will always be a dramatic weakness. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096874/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Back to the Future</span></a> managed it, but only as comedy (and of course, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/">Doctor Who</a> -- another show that has never taken itself seriously, in either of its incarnations).<br /><br />But enough kvetching:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NKYhTEaJYw"> as a dying Kirk says</a>, "It was fun". Enjoyably demented villain, plot that keeps moving along, plenty of fights and swashbuckling, some kick-ass space hardware and lots of explosions. The retro-industrial look of the Enterprise engine room looks more back to the <span style="font-style: italic;">Enterprise </span>TV series than forward to either classic or Next Generation Trek. The <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film">Onion review</a> (no, really!) gets it about right: "A fun and watchable action-packed thrill-ride".Eamon Knighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.com0