tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18230473067221011342024-02-19T00:06:35.787-06:00Spyglass' RamblingsA blog by Glen Mark Martin, an Exchange Admin at UT Austin, part-time pirate (really, <a href="http://glenmark.blogspot.com/2006/12/about-pirate-thing.html">Argh</a>!), VMS guy, armchair physicist, and genealogy junkie....<hr>
<a href="http://glenmark.blogspot.com">HOME</a> | <a href="http://glenmark.blogspot.com/p/store.html">STORE</a>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-60591825883512961992014-03-09T23:22:00.003-05:002014-03-09T23:22:48.730-05:00Asimov's Predictions for 2014On August 16, 1964, inspired by the 1964 New York World's Fair, the New York Times published <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html" target="_blank">an article</a> by Isaac Asimov containing a series of predictions about what the world of 2014 might be like. Let's take a look at how well one of the most prominent science fiction authors and futurists of the 20th century fared.<br />
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One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.</blockquote>
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Well, we do seem to enjoy sealing ourselves away in climate-controlled comfort, but the only only place we really see electroluminescent panels are for the backlights of flat panel televisions and computer displays.</div>
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Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.</blockquote>
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He didn't miss the mark by much. It isn't uncommon to find polarizing thin films applied to windows to block glare. Making them adjustable, though (usually via liquid crystals), remains largely an executive toy.</div>
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There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the "scenery" by changes in lighting. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. The surface, G.M. will argue, will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with less space wasted on actual human occupancy.</blockquote>
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Well, not all prognostications can be perfect. We didn't build down. We built out and up.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare "automeals," heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. Breakfasts will be "ordered" the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning. Complete lunches and dinners, with the food semiprepared, will be stored in the freezer until ready for processing. I suspect, though, that even in 2014 it will still be advisable to have a small corner in the kitchen unit where the more individual meals can be prepared by hand, especially when company is coming.</blockquote>
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Well, there certainly has been a proliferation of kitchen gadgets, although that process was already well underway by the time this was written, as was the rise of frozen dinners.</div>
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Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair has no robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown in all their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translating Russian into English. If machines are that smart today, what may not be in the works 50 years hence? It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the "brains" of robots. In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World's Fair may have, as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid*large, clumsy, slow- moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. It will undoubtedly amuse the fairgoers to scatter debris over the floor in order to see the robot lumberingly remove it and classify it into "throw away" and "set aside." (Robots for gardening work will also have made their appearance.)</blockquote>
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Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Asimov predicted the Roomba. Of course, it didn't turn out quite as he imagined.</div>
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General Electric at the 2014 World's Fair will be showing 3-D movies of its "Robot of the Future," neat and streamlined, its cleaning appliances built in and performing all tasks briskly. (There will be a three-hour wait in line to see the film, for some things never change.)</blockquote>
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And, lo and behold, 3-D movies have made a comeback in the last several years.</div>
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The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. The isotopes will not be expensive for they will be by- products of the fission-power plants which, by 2014, will be supplying well over half the power needs of humanity. But once the isotype batteries are used up they will be disposed of only through authorized agents of the manufacturer.</blockquote>
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It certainly would have been more impressive here if he had predicted that telephones would have no cords, but battery-powered gadgets are certainly common. As for radioisotopic batteries, that was certainly a miss. About the only area where those tend to be applied is in powering space probes.</div>
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And experimental fusion-power plant or two will already exist in 2014. (Even today, a small but genuine fusion explosion is demonstrated at frequent intervals in the G.E. exhibit at the 1964 fair.) Large solar-power stations will also be in operation in a number of desert and semi-desert areas -- Arizona, the Negev, Kazakhstan. In the more crowded, but cloudy and smoggy areas, solar power will be less practical. An exhibit at the 2014 fair will show models of power stations in space, collecting sunlight by means of huge parabolic focusing devices and radiating the energy thus collected down to earth.</blockquote>
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Ah, fusion power, perpetually a few decades down the road. The <a href="https://www.iter.org/" target="_blank">ITER</a> tokamak isn't expected to come online until about 2020. However, there are certainly several large solar power stations, although not as many as we need. In general, solar power still falls a bit short of being cost-competitive with fossil fuels.</div>
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The world of 50 years hence will have shrunk further. At the 1964 fair, the G.M. exhibit depicts, among other things, "road-building factories" in the tropics and, closer to home, crowded highways along which long buses move on special central lanes. There is every likelihood that highways at least in the more advanced sections of the world*will have passed their peak in 2014; there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface. There will be aircraft, of course, but even ground travel will increasingly take to the air*a foot or two off the ground. Visitors to the 1964 fair can travel there in an "aquafoil," which lifts itself on four stilts and skims over the water with a minimum of friction. This is surely a stop-gap. By 2014 the four stilts will have been replaced by four jets of compressed air so that the vehicle will make no contact with either liquid or solid surfaces.<br />Jets of compressed air will also lift land vehicles off the highways, which, among other things, will minimize paving problems. Smooth earth or level lawns will do as well as pavements. Bridges will also be of less importance, since cars will be capable of crossing water on their jets, though local ordinances will discourage the practice.</blockquote>
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Well, outside of a few water taxies and ferries around the world, hovercraft haven't exactly taken the world by storm, and highways show no sign of having passed their peak.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with "Robot-brains"*vehicles that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. I suspect one of the major attractions of the 2014 fair will be rides on small roboticized cars which will maneuver in crowds at the two-foot level, neatly and automatically avoiding each other.</blockquote>
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I refer you to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car" target="_blank">Google driverless car</a> project.</div>
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For short-range travel, moving sidewalks (with benches on either side, standing room in the center) will be making their appearance in downtown sections. They will be raised above the traffic. Traffic will continue (on several levels in some places) only because all parking will be off-street and because at least 80 per cent of truck deliveries will be to certain fixed centers at the city's rim. Compressed air tubes will carry goods and materials over local stretches, and the switching devices that will place specific shipments in specific destinations will be one of the city's marvels.</blockquote>
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Alas, traffic in our cities is still a major problem...</div>
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Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica (shown in chill splendor as part of the '64 General Motors exhibit).</blockquote>
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Hello, World Wide Web, SatPhones, Skype, and FaceTime....</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
For that matter, you will be able to reach someone at the moon colonies, concerning which General Motors puts on a display of impressive vehicles (in model form) with large soft tires*intended to negotiate the uneven terrain that may exist on our natural satellite.</blockquote>
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Moon colonies. <i>Sigh.</i> Alas, Asimov did not foresee that once we actually reached the moon, and in doing so achieved our Cold War goal of beating the Soviets there, Uncle Sam would lose interest in spending taxpayer dollars on going there.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
Any number of simultaneous conversations between earth and moon can be handled by modulated laser beams, which are easy to manipulate in space. On earth, however, laser beams will have to be led through plastic pipes, to avoid material and atmospheric interference. Engineers will still be playing with that problem in 2014.</blockquote>
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Well, we don't have anyone there to chat with, although the Apollo astronauts did leave mirrors there off of which we can bounce lasers. As for the part about laser beams traveling through plastic pipes, Asimov here pretty much predicted fiber optics, which forms the backbone of our worldwide communications networks. (The first fiber optic data transmission was made in 1964.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
Conversations with the moon will be a trifle uncomfortable, but the way, in that 2.5 seconds must elapse between statement and answer (it takes light that long to make the round trip). Similar conversations with Mars will experience a 3.5-minute delay even when Mars is at its closest. However, by 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works and in the 2014 Futurama will show a model of an elaborate Martian colony.</blockquote>
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Yes, only unmanned probes have made it to mars. Anyone want to take bets on whether or not <a href="https://www.mars-one.com/" target="_blank">Mars One</a> will ever get off the ground?</div>
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As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set; but transparent cubes will be making their appearance in which three-dimensional viewing will be possible. In fact, one popular exhibit at the 2014 World's Fair will be such a 3-D TV, built life-size, in which ballet performances will be seen. The cube will slowly revolve for viewing from all angles.</blockquote>
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Well now, we do have flat panel televisions, and even 3-D televisions, although not quite in the format Asimov predicted.</div>
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One can go on indefinitely in this happy extrapolation, but all is not rosy.<br />As I stood in line waiting to get into the General Electric exhibit at the 1964 fair, I found myself staring at Equitable Life's grim sign blinking out the population of the United States, with the number (over 191,000,000) increasing by 1 every 11 seconds. During the interval which I spent inside the G.E. pavilion, the American population had increased by nearly 300 and the world's population by 6,000.<br />In 2014, there is every likelihood that the world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000. Boston-to-Washington, the most crowded area of its size on the earth, will have become a single city with a population of over 40,000,000.</blockquote>
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Population increase continues to be a major problem, and the reality is slightly worse than Asimov predicted. The estimated global population in 2013 was 7.13 billion. As for the US population, we fared a bit better, with the 2013 estimate being 319 million.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
Population pressure will force increasing penetration of desert and polar areas. Most surprising and, in some ways, heartening, 2014 will see a good beginning made in the colonization of the continental shelves. Underwater housing will have its attractions to those who like water sports, and will undoubtedly encourage the more efficient exploitation of ocean resources, both food and mineral. General Motors shows, in its 1964 exhibit, the model of an underwater hotel of what might be called mouth-watering luxury. The 2014 World's Fair will have exhibits showing cities in the deep sea with bathyscaphe liners carrying men and supplies across and into the abyss.</blockquote>
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Well, no undersea cities just yet.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
Ordinary agriculture will keep up with great difficulty and there will be "farms" turning to the more efficient micro-organisms. Processed yeast and algae products will be available in a variety of flavors. The 2014 fair will feature an Algae Bar at which "mock-turkey" and "pseudosteak" will be served. It won't be bad at all (if you can dig up those premium prices), but there will be considerable psychological resistance to such an innovation.</blockquote>
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This prediction parallels Asimov's later Foundation prequels in which he describes yeast and algae being vital food sources for the city-covered world of Trantor. Meanwhile, in the real world, outside of nori and Vegemite, we don't generally see a lot of algae or yeast-based foods in use.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white;">
Although technology will still keep up with population through 2014, it will be only through a supreme effort and with but partial success. Not all the world's population will enjoy the gadgety world of the future to the full. A larger portion than today will be deprived and although they may be better off, materially, than today, they will be further behind when compared with the advanced portions of the world. They will have moved backward, relatively.</blockquote>
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Asimov was definitely on the mark here. Global wealth inequality is rampant, and threatens to become an increasing severe source of geopolitical turmoil.</div>
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Nor can technology continue to match population growth if that remains unchecked. Consider Manhattan of 1964, which has a population density of 80,000 per square mile at night and of over 100,000 per square mile during the working day. If the whole earth, including the Sahara, the Himalayan Mountain peaks, Greenland, Antarctica and every square mile of the ocean bottom, to the deepest abyss, were as packed as Manhattan at noon, surely you would agree that no way to support such a population (let alone make it comfortable) was conceivable. In fact, support would fail long before the World-Manhattan was reached.<br />Well, the earth's population is now about 3,000,000,000 and is doubling every 40 years. If this rate of doubling goes unchecked, then a World-Manhattan is coming in just 500 years. All earth will be a single choked Manhattan by A.D. 2450 and society will collapse <i>long before that!</i></blockquote>
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And as long as religious institutions continue to resist the use of birth control, overpopulation will continue to be a problem.</div>
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There are only two general ways of preventing this: (1) raise the death rate; (2) lower the birth rate. Undoubtedly, the world of A>D. 2014 will have agreed on the latter method. Indeed, the increasing use of mechanical devices to replace failing hearts and kidneys, and repair stiffening arteries and breaking nerves will have cut the death rate still further and have lifted the life expectancy in some parts of the world to age 85.</blockquote>
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Wolfram|Alpha tells me that the current US life expectancy is 78. Currently, the highest life expectancy is in Macau at 84.</div>
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There will, therefore, be a worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control by rational and humane methods and, by 2014, it will undoubtedly have taken serious effect. The rate of increase of population will have slackened*but, I suspect, not sufficiently.</blockquote>
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The population growth rate has certainly been going down recently, but not nearly enough.</div>
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One of the more serious exhibits at the 2014 World's Fair, accordingly, will be a series of lectures, movies and documentary material at the World Population Control Center (adults only; special showings for teen-agers).</blockquote>
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Good luck with that. I refer you to my earlier comment about resistance to birth control.</div>
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The situation will have been made the more serious by the advances of automation. The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. Schools will have to be oriented in this direction. Part of the General Electric exhibit today consists of a school of the future in which such present realities as closed-circuit TV and programmed tapes aid the teaching process. It is not only the techniques of teaching that will advance, however, but also the subject matter that will change. All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary "Fortran" (from "formula translation").</blockquote>
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Job displacement due to automation is a major problem, requiring significant workforce re-education. And computer literacy has rapidly become a significant component of high school curricula. These days, it is not at all uncommon to see high-schoolers learning Java and C++. </div>
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Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.<br />Indeed, the most somber speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become <i>work!</i></blockquote>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Boredom? Who has time to be bored? Everyone is staring at their phones watching crappy reality TV shows. If only our biggest problem had turned out to be boredom.</div>
Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-7305536158198796072014-03-04T14:20:00.000-06:002014-03-04T14:20:48.592-06:00Reflections On Sagan's CosmosThis Sunday, March 9, marks the debut of <i><a href="http://www.cosmosontv.com/" target="_blank">Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey</a></i>, a modern day follow-up to the classic Carl Sagan mini-series, <i>Cosmos: A Personal Voyage</i>. This update, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and produced by Seth MacFarlane and Ann Druyan (Sagan's widow), appears promising. The principals involved are all people who are passionate about Sagan's legacy of bringing the wonder of scientific inquiry and discovery to the public eye. Neil deGrasse Tyson himself seems a worthy inheritor of Sagan's mantle of "science communicator," and I have high hopes for the new series. These hopes are not without some trepidation, however.<br />
<br />
You see, Sagan's original <i>Cosmos</i> holds a special place in my heart and memories. When the series originally aired in 1980, I already had a keen interest in science, but <i>Cosmos</i> kindled something new. There I was, living out on a cotton farm on the South Plains of Texas, about 50 miles away from the low-power PBS station that was broadcasting the series, tweaking the tuner knob of our television to try to reduce the inevitable static. I viewed the amazing visualizations the series is known for through a veil of broadcast snow, watching Sagan stride across the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Calendar" target="_blank">Cosmic Calendar</a>, and I could imagine myself walking with him through a model of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria" target="_blank">Library of Alexandria</a> in search of the lost writings of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos" target="_blank">Aristarchus</a>. And I journeyed with him through time and space aboard his metaphorical "Spaceship of the Imagination."<br />
<br />
But, more than all of that, more than the tidbits of information (much of which I was already aware of), more than the visuals (which, for 1980 public television, were pretty impressive), there was Carl Sagan's voice, coming in loud and clear despite the static-laden video signal. It was a calm, reassuring, and friendly voice. And it was a voice filled with wonder. Here was the voice of someone who had seen the kinds of things I wanted to see. Here was the voice of someone who had done the kinds of things that I wanted to do. Here, coming into my home over a tenuous broadcast signal, was the voice of a kindred spirit. In the relative isolation in which I was growing up, that was astonishing. I was not alone. That realization impacted me in ways that I haven't the words to describe. Carl Sagan inspired me.<br />
<br />
Sadly, Carl Sagan passed away in 1996. I never had the chance to shake his hand, to look him in the eyes and thank him for what he had done for me and others like me.<br />
<br />
You have big shoes to fill, Neil. Wear them well.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kBTd9--9VMI" width="560"></iframe>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-10084584323703972532014-02-05T15:08:00.004-06:002014-02-07T17:46:56.031-06:00So Many Misconceptions, So Little Time....<div style="background: PapayaWhip; border: 2px solid #000000; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;">
<b>Update (Feb. 7)</b>: Several actual SCIENTISTS have provided their own responses in their own blogs.<br />
<ul>
<li>Phil Plait (Bad Astronomery) - "<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/02/06/religion_and_science_answering_creationists_questions.html" target="_blank">Answers for Creationists</a>"</li>
<li>Ethan Siegel (Starts With A Bang) - "<a href="https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/8712e42fbb0d" target="_blank">22 Messages of Hope (and Science) for Creationists</a>"</li>
<li>Steven Novella (NeuroLogica) - "<a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/questions-from-the-nye-ham-debate/" target="_blank">Questions from the Nye-Ham Debate</a>"</li>
</ul>
</div>
<br />
So, in the wake of the big debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, a contributor to Buzzfeed asked 22 self-identifying creationists to write a questions for the other side. The <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/messages-from-creationists-to-people-who-believe-in-evolutio" target="_blank">results</a> were a rather frightening display of ignorance about the subject at hand.<br />
<br />
Here are my responses.<br />
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<b>1. Bill Nye, Are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?</b><br />
<br />
Well, I can't speak for Bill Nye; but, from my perspective at least, he is absolutely influencing the minds of children in a positive way, exposing them to the wonders of scientific inquiry.<br />
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<b>2. Are you scared of a Divine Creator? </b><br />
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That would depend upon who the question is directed to. For the many scientist who do follow a religious faith, they have no difficulty reconciling that faith with science. For the many others who are atheists, they are of course not scared of a non-existent entity.<br />
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<b>3. Is it completely illogical that the earth was created mature? i.e. tree created with rings... Adam created as an adult... </b><br />
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This isn't really a scientific question, but from a theological perspective, yes, it is completely illogical. Light from distant stars created in-flight? Fake fossils planted in geological strata? A Creator who would resort to such trickery seems pretty seedy.<br />
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<b>4. Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove Evolution? </b><br />
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No, it does not. The Second Law applies to thermodynamically isolated systems. The Earth's ecosystem is thermodynamically coupled to a HUGE entropy generator called "the Sun."<br />
<br />
You may have heard of it.<br />
<br />
Nothing about evolutionary dynamics contradicts thermodynamics. Sure, certain biological processes can cause a local decrease in entropy. For that matter, so does the formation of a snowflake or any other crystalline structure. But, taken together with the overall thermodynamic system in which these processes take place, the net entropy increases.<br />
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<b>5. How do you explain a sunset if their[sic] is no God? </b><br />
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Er, the earth rotates, causing the sun to seem to sink below the horizon.<br />
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All kidding aside, I refer you to my answer for #20 (to avoid duplication).<br />
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<b>6. If the Big Bang Theory is true and taught as science along with evolution, why do the laws of thermodynamics debunk said theories? </b><br />
<br />
First of all, the laws of thermodynamics do not even remotely debunk the BBT or evolution. I address evolution in #4 above. As for the Big Bang Theory, your concern likely involves the Law of Conservation of Energy. That worry mistakenly assumes that all energy has a positive value. However, as any freshman physics student should be able to tell you, the potential energy between mutually attracting bodies is a negative value. Assuming a cosmology in which overall spacetime is flat (in other words, aside from local gravitational curvature) as opposed to closed or hyperbolic, which seems to be the case based upon measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the net energy balance for the cosmos comes out to zero.<br />
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<b>7. What about Noetics? </b><br />
<br />
I don't think that word means what you think it means. I suggest you look it up. It has nothing to do with this discussion.<br />
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<b>8. Where do you derive objective meaning in life? </b><br />
<br />
Again, this has nothing to do with this discussion. Furthermore, it assumes that there is such a thing as life having an objective meaning. But that is more of a metaphysical/philosophical debate than anything else.<br />
<br />
<b>9. If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate? By chance? </b><br />
<br />
That is actually outside of the scope of evolutionary theory, but the origins of life are an area of active research, and many interesting conjectures have been put forth. And, yes, by and large, these conjectural models are based upon chance. There is a nice overview of this topic at <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html</a> .<br />
<br />
<b>10. I believe in the Big Bang Theory... God said it and BANG it happened! </b><br />
<br />
That isn't a question. It is a statement.<br />
<br />
<b>11. Why do evolutionists/secularists/humanists/non-God believing people reject the idea of their[sic] being being a creator God but embrace the concept of intelligent design from aliens or other extra-terestrial sources? </b><br />
<br />
Scientists by and large don't really subscribe to the highly-speculative idea of intelligent design by aliens, although it makes an interesting premise for sci-fi movies. There is no evidence supporting it.<br />
<br />
There is an idea called "panspermia" which suggest that the basic building blocks of life came here from outer space, but that is based upon the simple observational fact that spectroscopic analysis of many nebulae and dust clouds in space reveal the presence of complex organic molecules. Basically, the building blocks of life are fairly common throughout the cosmos. Even more speculative variants of this idea involve conjecture about the first primitive cells themselves coming to Earth from space, but that is pretty far out on the fringe in the scientific community, and, again, highly speculative.<br />
<br />
<b>12. There is no in between... The only one found has been Lucy and there are only of a few pieces of the hundreds necessary for an "official proof" </b><br />
<br />
Lucy isn't the only australopithecene found, nor the only primitive hominid found. Take a look at this (far from comprehensive) overview of hominid fossils: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html<br />
<br />
<b>13. Does metamorphosis help support evolution? </b><br />
<br />
In that biologists have a pretty good grasp of how certain species evolved to go through such a process, yes. See Truman, J. W. and L. M. Riddiford, 1999. "The origins of insect metamorphosis". Nature 401: 447-452. <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v401/n6752/abs/401447a0.html">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v401/n6752/abs/401447a0.html</a><br />
<br />
<b>14. If Evolution is a Theory (like creationism or the Bible) why then is Evolution taught as fact. </b><br />
<br />
First of all, we need to clear up some definitions. While the word theory as used in common vernacular tends to be synonymous with a conjecture or hypothesis, as used in science the word means far more. A theory is a model for explaining how things work in nature. A theory should be supported by experimental and observational evidence. There should be ways of testing it to see if it is wrong (falsifiability). A theory should have predictive capabilities that can then be compared to observation and experiment. Evolution meets all of these criteria.<br />
<br />
Evolution is also an observable fact. We can see it in action. We can even manipulate it, as has been done for millennia in agriculture. It is also a theory, or, more properly, the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology is the theoretical structure which explains and describes how evolution works.<br />
<br />
Creationism is not a theory. It is a belief. It is not supported by physical evidence. In fact, the entirety of physical evidence, from the fields of biology, genetics, paleontology, geology, astrophysics, and astronomy, contradicts it.<br />
<br />
The Bible is not a theory. It is a book.<br />
<br />
Creationism and the Bible could certainly be taught in schools in a comparative religions course, but they have no place in a science class, simply because they are not science.<br />
<br />
<b>15. Because science by definition is a "theory" - not testable, observable, nor repeatable, why do you object to creationism or intelligent design being taught in school? </b><br />
<br />
Yet another instance of someone who does not know the meaning of the word "theory." See the answer to #14. The word "theory" does not mean what you think it means.<br />
<br />
<b>16. What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process. </b><br />
<br />
Genetic information is added via random mutations. Whether the information added is of any benefit to the genetic population in question is determined by natural selection. It is a crap shoot. Most mutations are rather neutral in their impact. You have a few hundred mutations that your parents didn't have. Sometimes mutations are beneficial. Sometimes they are harmful. The latter tend to be weeded out over time if they represent a reproductive disadvantage in terms of natural selection.<br />
<br />
A lot people seem to be stuck on the notion that information cannot be generated randomly. However, in information theory, even random data counts as information. In fact given a block of random digits, and a same-sized block of alternating ones and zeros, the first block actually has more information content, since the second block can be compressed to a more compact representation. This concept is independent of any "meaning" the data might have, as meaning is imposed by context. In the case of evolution and biological processes, the context is imposed through how genetic information is interpreted and expressed by the transcription process and what impact the resulting proteins and processes have on natural selection.<br />
<br />
<b>17. What purpose do you think you are here for if you do not believe in salvation? </b><br />
<br />
See #8.<br />
<br />
<b>18. Why have we found only 1 "Lucy", when we have found more than 1 of everything else? </b><br />
<br />
See #12.<br />
<br />
<b>19. Can you believe in "the big bang" without "faith"? </b><br />
<br />
No one "believes" in the Big Bang, or in evolution, for that matter. It is not a matter of belief or faith. The Big Bang theory is the best currently available model for explaining the observational evidence about the cosmos, just as evolution is the best available model for explaining the totality of biology. If a better model comes along that provides better explanations and fits the evidence better, great!<br />
<br />
(As an historical aside, I should note that the Big Bang Theory was first postulated by a priest, Monseigneur Georges Lemaître.)<br />
<br />
Science is not a static body of knowledge, nor is it a bastion of dogma. It is a process for keeping us from fooling ourselves, for testing what we think is correct. In science, all knowledge is provisional, and evidence is the ultimate arbitrator of what is valid and what is invalid. A well-trained scientists always questions and double-checks the assumptions upon which they base their conclusions. Those that find problems with those assumptions are the ones who propel our knowledge forward.<br />
<br />
<b>20. How can you look at the world and not believe someone Created/thought of it? It's Amazing!!! </b><br />
<br />
Again, this is more of a metaphysical question rather than a scientific question. First of all, yes, the world and the universe are amazing, and beautiful, and awe-inspiring. And, guess what? Many scientists who reject Young Earth Creationism also believe in a creator, having no difficulty reconciling their faith with science. For them, the creation account in Genesis is more metaphorical or poetic, the result of our ancient ancestors trying to understand how everything came to be based upon what little they knew.<br />
<br />
For those of us who are not believers, that does not make the universe any less beautiful or awe-inspiring. Just because I can explain in excruciating mathematical detail how a rainbow works (and I can) doesn't make it seem any less beautiful to me. In fact, understanding how it works enhances my appreciation of its beauty.
<br />
<br />
Back in 1990, as the Voyager 1 space probe was entering the outer reaches of the solar system, Carl Sagan directed that its cameras be pointed back into the inner solar system to capture a "family portrait" of the worlds of our system. Included in the images captured was shot of the Earth, appearing as a tiny pale blue dot. That image inspired Sagan (an atheist) to pen the following beautiful passage:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.</blockquote>
<br />
<b>21. Relating to the big bang theory.... Where did the exploding star come from? </b><br />
<br />
First of all, the BBT doesn't say that the universe came from an exploding star. That said, there is considerable speculation about the origins of the big bang, although nothing has been settled definitively (and likely will not be until we have a good quantum gravity model). The prevailing model right now among cosmologists and astrophysicists is that the "primordial particle" from which the Big Bang sprung came from a quantum fluctuation, an idea perfectly consistent with quantum field theory as we now understand it. (Yes, particles spring from nothingness all the time. It is an inescapable consequence of quantum theory.)<br />
<br />
<b>22. If we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?</b><br />
<br />
Oh, this old chestnut encapsulates two major misconceptions about how evolution works. First of all, the theory of common descent doesn't say that humans evolved from monkeys. Rather, humans and monkeys share common ancestry, that they are two different branches of the same evolutionary family tree. In this case, that common ancestral species is in fact extinct.
However, speciation doesn't require the extinction of the progenitor species, particularly if the new species has become geographically isolated from the remainder of the population. Such an isolated population can be exposed to more intensive selective pressures causing more rapid development than the parent species.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-49987148384266490482013-02-02T18:06:00.003-06:002013-02-02T18:28:00.646-06:00Continuing on with a LotR theme....Yes, we've all thought it:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeIIUy9TnAUYi-EZGA3s9gzshavKZDoFrQ5WOiReUbnaYHTpA4T7Jk6Yf2FwSGhfUK1jazeni4KEffXt5InkZelakRxj5xLPacS1WUAy6cJGGD5i0F-wAg9nuNaq2xvDf-lQmc0OoxME/s1600/LotR.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="778" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeIIUy9TnAUYi-EZGA3s9gzshavKZDoFrQ5WOiReUbnaYHTpA4T7Jk6Yf2FwSGhfUK1jazeni4KEffXt5InkZelakRxj5xLPacS1WUAy6cJGGD5i0F-wAg9nuNaq2xvDf-lQmc0OoxME/s640/LotR.png" width="660" /></a></div>
<br />
And, yes, I've heard the arguments against it:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>"What about the Ringwraiths? They have flying mounts!"<br />Sure, but there was a window of opportunity after they were flushed away at the fords that they became a non-issue. They had to make their way back to Mordor, assume new forms, and take up mounts. That would have taken time.</li>
<li>"Gandalf couldn't just summon the Eagles whenever he pleased. Gwaihir tended to intervene when it suited him."<br />True. Although the films depict Gandalf summoning Gwaihir via moth (once in <i>The Hobbit</i> and once in <i>The Fellowship of the Ring</i>), the books depict Gwaihir and his fellow Eagles spotting a situation they didn't like and intervening of their own accord. Could Gandalf have convinced him to help? Maybe.</li>
<li>"Flying to Mordor would be too far." <br />True enough. After Gwaihir plucks Gandalf from the top of Orthanc, it is mentioned that he cannot carry Gandalf very far, so he takes him only as far as Edoras. But, the journey to Mordor could have been conducted in stages.</li>
<li>"The book would have been far too short then, and the characters wouldn't have had opportunity for full development."<br />There we go. The real answer.</li>
</ul>
Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-55355434854184061462013-01-20T00:45:00.000-06:002013-02-02T11:45:23.810-06:00Genealogy + Tolkien = Far Too Much Time BurnedThis is what happens when a genealogy enthusiast spends time reading Tolkien.<br />
<br />
While on a binge of re-reading <i>The Hobbit</i>, <i>The Lord of The Rings</i>, and <i>The Silmarillion</i>, not to mention finally getting around to reading <i>The Children of Húrin</i> and <i>Unfinished Tales</i> (with the first five volumes of <i>The Histories of Middle-earth</i> still waiting in the wings), I grew a bit weary of constantly looking up characters to remind myself of their relationships to other characters. Sure, Tolkien threw in plenty of genealogical charts, but they are segmented in such a way that masked their interrelationships. I wanted to remedy that. And, well, here is the result. (Be sure to click to Argonathenate.)<br />
[Now updated to include Galathil, brother of Celeborn and father of Nimloth.]
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJqIKCrJhUZCaITAppbJ7ZMdJsLJ3XlGCUiDdRxQohn-73ZR8nDW2DvStU2ZHKLS04m8hU9NORdIGmeDIctL6618x8oO0qYXhVIHS_n9gxv-HnXN-mONqapoRLlw0Mvf5O6eTayYFvys/s1600/TolkeinTree2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJqIKCrJhUZCaITAppbJ7ZMdJsLJ3XlGCUiDdRxQohn-73ZR8nDW2DvStU2ZHKLS04m8hU9NORdIGmeDIctL6618x8oO0qYXhVIHS_n9gxv-HnXN-mONqapoRLlw0Mvf5O6eTayYFvys/s640/TolkeinTree2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I alway knew that Aragorn's ancestry was rich and complex, but I had never before noticed just how many wreaths there were in his family tree.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-17185709253296121772012-10-07T17:37:00.000-05:002012-10-07T17:37:09.272-05:002013: A Great Year for Comet Viewing2013 is shaping up to be a banner year for stargazers wanting to get an up close and personal view of comets.<br />
<br />
First up in March, we will be treated by a view of Comet Pan-STARRS (<a href="http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2011L4;cad=1#cad" target="_blank">C/2011 L4</a>), named for the <a href="http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2010/pr201008.html" target="_blank">Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System</a>, the telescope which first spotted it back in June of last year. It is expected to have a peak magnitude somewhere in the range from +1 to -1.<br />
<br />
But that is just the warm-up act. The real show will be in December, when Comet ISON (<a href="http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2012S1;cad=1#cad" target="_blank">C/2012 S1</a>) puts in its appearance. Discovered just last month by Vitali Nevski and Aryom Novichonok, participants in the <a href="http://lfvn.astronomer.ru/report/0000029/index.htm" target="_blank">International Scientific Optical Network</a>. This newcomer is thought to be fresh from the Oort cloud. Having never made a close approach to the Sun, it should put on a particularly bright show as its outer shell vaporizes and forms a tail. Some estimates optimistically predict that it might shine as brightly as the full Moon!<br />
<br />
<br />
For more information on Comet Pan-STARRS:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2011L4;cad=1#cad">JPL Small-Body Database Browser</a> (entry for C/2011 L4)</li>
<li><a href="http://mpcapp1.cfa.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/returnprepeph.cgi?d=c&o=CK11L040">Elements and Ephemeris for C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/Comet-PanSTARRS-Still-on-Track-147166535.html">Comet Pan-STARRS: Still on Track - Observing Blog - SkyandTelescope.com</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
For more information on Comet ISON:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2012S1;cad=1#cad">JPL Small-Body Database Browser</a> (entry for C/2012 S1)</li>
<li><a href="http://mpcapp1.cfa.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/returnprepeph.cgi?d=c&o=CK12S010">Elements and Ephemeris for C/2012 S1 (ISON)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/10/05/once-in-a-civilization-comet-to-zip-past-earth-next-year/">“Once in a Civilization” Comet to Zip past Earth Next Year | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/A-Dream-Comet-Heading-Our-Way-171521041.html">A "Dream Comet" Heading Our Way? - Observing Blog - SkyandTelescope.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.astronomy.com/News-Observing/News/2012/09/New%20comet%20will%20light%20up%20the%20sky.aspx">New comet will light up the sky - Astronomy Magazine</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/09/newly-spotted-comet-may-outshi.html">Short Sharp Science: Newly spotted comet may outshine the full moon</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1209/25comet/">New comet might blaze brighter than the full Moon</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-18994131987256831182012-06-07T11:01:00.001-05:002012-06-07T11:07:13.987-05:00The Feynman InterviewsThe late <a href="http://www.feynmanonline.com/" target="_blank">Richard Feynman</a> has long been a hero of mine, not only for his contributions to his field (his path integral approach to quantum electrodynamics revolutionized modern physics), but also for his skill at communicating advanced concepts in simple terms, his love for tackling problems for the simple joy of finding the answers, and for his general zest for life.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.aip.org/history/" target="_blank">The Niels Bohr Library & Archives with the Center for History of Physics</a> has posted the transcripts of a series of interviews conducted with Feynman in 1966. These rambling interviews touch upon all aspects his life (at least up to that point in his life - there was much more afterwards), and are a fascinating read. Many of the anecdotes presented should be familiar to readers of the many books about Feynman's life, but it is particularly nice to have them presented in the man's own words.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/5020_1.html">Session I</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/5020_2.html">Session II</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/5020_3.html">Session III</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/5020_4.html">Session IV</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/5020_5.html">Session V</a> </li>
</ul>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-33619844906053711062012-04-10T09:47:00.000-05:002012-04-16T13:11:41.663-05:00The Centenary of the Sinking of RMS Titanic<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/RMS_Titanic_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/RMS_Titanic_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RMS_Titanic_3.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On April 10, 1912, the RMS <i>Titanic</i>, pride of the White Star Line, departed Southampton, England, bound for the City of New York. As all the world knows, she never arrived at her destination. At 11:40 P.M. (ship's time, three hours behind GMT) on the evening of April 14, 1912, lookout Frederick Fleet called out "Iceberg right ahead." Less than a minute later, as the crew scrambled to alter course, the infamous collision took place. At 2:20 A.M. the next morning, the lumbering hulk of the <i>Titanic</i> slipped beneath the waters of the North Atlantic, claiming the lives of an estimated 1,514 individuals. Over a thousand of those were still aboard when she went down. The remainder succumbed to hypothermia in the frigid waters. There were only 710 survivors in all.<br />
<br />
It is no understatement that the sinking of the <i>Titanic</i> marked something of an end to an age of innocence. Coming at the end of the Second Industrial Revolution, the launch of the <i>Titanic</i> carried with it an air of hubris, a seemingly unbreakable faith in mankind's mastery over Nature via steel and steam. The technology of Industry reigned supreme. Until <i>Titanic</i>. And it is no small irony that among those who lost their lives in the disaster were among the leading industrial magnates of the era, including Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim (a fact which tends to overshadow the deaths of throngs of poor and working class passengers trapped below decks in steerage). That night, the human race was given a lesson in humility.<br />
<br />
To be fair, neither White Star nor the ship's builders claimed the ship to be unsinkable. That label was applied by the press (and largely <i>after</i> the sinking). But neither the line nor the builders really made an effort to disabuse the public of the notion that the <i>Titanic</i> was unsinkable. After all, it was great advertising. And, to exacerbate the situation, <i>Titanic</i> carried only a third of the lifeboats needed to accommodate her maximum crew and passenger complement, and the crew was inadequately trained in emergency procedures. Coupled with the skipper, Edward Smith, driving her forward at full speed that night, despite having received wireless warnings of icebergs in the vicinity, the end result was almost inevitable.<br />
<br />
In retrospect, it was simple for maritime engineers to spot the design flaw which permitted <i>Titanic</i>'s unthinkable fate. The superstructure of the ship was divided into sixteen "watertight" compartments. However, these compartments were not sealed at the top. The collision opened five of these compartments to the sea. As they filled, the bow was lowered by the weight of the seawater being taken aboard, until that seawater was able to start spilling over into each adjacent compartment, setting up a chain reaction of flooding compartments which eventually doomed the vessel. Eventually, the sinking bow lifted the stern out of the water, which resulted in the stern section breaking off under its own weight, accelerating the sinking of the behemoth.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, <a href="http://www.nist.gov/mml/metallurgy/titanic_021798.cfm" target="_blank">metallurgical analysis</a> of the iron rivets retrieved from the wreckage suggests that they were manufactured with an unacceptably high slag content, rendering them more brittle than they should have been. Had stronger rivets been used in the construction, damage from the collision might have more localized, potentially to the point of only four of the watertight compartments being exposed to the sea, a condition which she could have conceivably survived. (Of course, this is pure speculation. It is difficult to say with certainty, as the portion of the hull which came into contact with the iceberg is buried under the silt of the sea floor, rendering direct examination of the damage impossible at this time.)<br />
<br />
As with most catastrophic engineering disasters, error compounded error, setting up a cascade of failures. And, sadly, the elimination of any one of those errors could have made a tremendous difference in the outcome. But hindsight cannot save those already lost.<br />
<br />
<br />
For more info:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/titanic/index.html">Titanic - News - The New York Times</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/1912/04/16/P1">TimesMachine April 16, 1912 - New York Times</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/titanic/sides-text">Unseen Titanic - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/titanic/titanic-interactive">Unseen Titanic - Interactive: The Crash Scene - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/titanic/titanic-photography">Unseen Titanic - Photo Gallery - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=titanic-anniversary">The Titanic : 100 Years Later: In-Depth Reports</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/04/09/how-did-titanic-really-break-up/">How did Titanic really break up? | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=titantic-timeline-1909-2012">A Titanic Timeline, 1909-2012 [Interactive]: Scientific American</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19860811,00.html">TIME Magazine Cover: Alvin' Explores 'Titanic' - Aug. 11, 1986 - Exploration - Submarines</a></li>
<li><a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/05/should-the-titanics-artifacts-stay-underwater/">Should Titanic Artifacts Stay in Sea or Sell at Auction? | NewsFeed | TIME.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://lightbox.time.com/2012/04/04/titanic/#1">Titantic Photographs by Fr. Francis Browne - LightBox</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2074763,00.html">Belfast Celebrates the Centenary of the 'Titanic' Launch - TIME</a></li>
<li><a href="http://techland.time.com/2010/09/01/the-titanic-expedition-a-race-to-map-the-wreckage-before-the-ship-disintegrates/">The Titanic Expedition: A Race To Map The Wreckage Before The Ship Disintegrates | Techland | TIME.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/2012/04/14/the-science-behind-the-iceberg-that-sank-titanic/">The Science behind the Iceberg that sank the Titanic | History of Geology, Scientific American Blog Network</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/titanic-iceberg-history/">What Happened to the Iceberg That Sank the Titanic? | Wired Science | Wired.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.rmstitanic.net/">RMS Titanic Home | Titanic Pictures, Titanic Video, Titanic Survivor Information</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.hf.ro/">THE TITANIC RADIO PAGE</a></li>
</ul>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-83143642870722880192012-03-30T23:03:00.002-05:002012-03-30T23:03:41.417-05:00Film Review: "John Carter"Long a fan of the pulp fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, perhaps best known as the creator of Tarzan, I had eagerly awaited the release of Disney's production of <i>John Carter</i>, based upon Burroughs' first Barsoom (Mars) novel, <i>A Princess of Mars</i>. Well, except for the Disney part. I must admit that Disney's involvement had me a little apprehensive. Clearly, the film wouldn't be a <a href="http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=25009" target="_blank">Frazetta painting</a> brought to life. Oh well. But the fact remains that a novel which had served as a childhood inspiration for some of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers of the 20th century, not to mention several generations of fans, was being brought to the big screen, and that is reason enough for excitement.<br />
<br />
Despite the film's weak box office performance (the word "flop" is being routinely bandied about) and the less than impressive trailers, I was pleasantly surprised. John Carter is a fun film, quite effectively capturing the adventure and spirit of the original pulp novel. Certainly, the characters were somewhat two-dimensional, but that is not surprising considering the source material. It was a pulp novel, after all. If anything, the writers for the film managed, to their credit, to give the female lead, Dejah Thoris (ably portrayed by Lynn Collins), somewhat more depth than the original, making her more independent and resourceful than the stereotypical damsal in distress that she was in the books (and thus more palatable for modern audiences). The John Carter character himself is also given some more depth, at least in terms of exhibiting character growth as the film progresses. The Carter of the book is unchanging, constantly honor-bound to fight against injustice. The Carter of the film, played by Taylor Kitsch, has a few personal demons to confront, and by and large is only interested in getting home until later in the story, when he realizes, motivated both by love and a sense of honor, that he must do the right thing. Sadly, that love aspect, the kindling of feelings between Carter and Dejah Thoris, isn't well explored, and is rolled out in the story in a somewhat perfunctory and <i>pro forma</i> fashion, as are many of the aforementioned improvements in Carter's character.<br />
<br />
Overall, the film remains astonishingly faithful to the book, although there are some major differences, and I can quite readily see why most of those changes were made. For starters, the film transforms the Therns from the book <i>The Gods of Mars</i> into beings who turn out to be an advanced alien race not indigenous to Barsoom. Travelling from world to world, the Therns manipulate the historical development of the civilizations they encounter (including, it would seem, that of Earth), seemingly feeding upon the chaos they introduce. This change allows the filmmakers to not only introduce a stronger overall story arc to the film, but also allow them to correct one of the weakest aspects of the book: how John Carter got to Barsoom.<br />
<br />
In the book, Carter travelled to Barsoom by means of, well, essentially wishing himself there. The best way to describe the process would be astral projection, but with the added benefit of actually having a material body at the other end of the journey. This rather unsatisfactory explanation is replaced in the film with a bit of advanced Thern technology, consisting of what is basically a transporter which constructs a copy of the body at the destination, leaving the true body in a state resembling death.<br />
<br />
Another major change is the transformation of the city of Zodanga into a moving city, striding across the Martian landscape and consuming resources as it goes. Whether the purpose of this change was to simply introduce a bit of visual spectacle or to make the Zodangans seem a bit more nefarious is unclear, but perhaps it was a bit of both.<br />
<br />
Whatever the motivations, the filmakers did an effective job of bringing to life the Barsoom of Burroughs' imagination, which in turn reflects the Mars imagined by Percival Lowell. And it looks like a fascinating place to visit, provided that one stays on the good side of the Tharks.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-49753406853881968212012-03-28T11:32:00.000-05:002012-10-07T18:13:35.958-05:00The 411 on the PPACAAs the Supreme Court tussles over the constitutionality of provisions of the <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/full/index.html" target="_blank">Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act</a> (frequently tagged with the derisive and misleading label "ObamaCare"), my friend <a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/author/stayathomeeconomist/" target="_blank">Dr. Margo Bergman</a> (who holds a PhD in Economics and a Master of Public Health in Public Health Genetics) over at the <a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">StayAtHomeEconomist blog</a> has been writing a series of articles going over what is actually in the law. This is a pretty handy thing, considering how grossly ill-informed most people seem to be about the topic. (Hint: There are no "death panels" in it.)<br />
<br />
Here is what is up so far. I'll add links to additional postings as they appear.<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/getting-to-know-the-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act/">Getting to Know the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/health-care-in-america-a-brief-tutorial/">Health Care in America – a brief tutorial</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/section-1001/">Section 1001</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/section-1001-continued/">Section 1001 – continued!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/65/">From my cold, dead, but presumably healthy (except the dead part), hands</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/sec-1001-the-final-push/">Sec 1001 – the final push</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/a-three-fer-for-you/">A Three-fer for you!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/and-we-move-faster-faster-through-time-and-space-well-just-the-ppaca-really/">And we move faster, faster through time and space, well, just the PPACA, really</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/sorry-for-the-hiatus-teething-baby/">Sorry for the hiatus – teething baby!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/moving-into-the-future/">Moving into the future</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/special-rules-oh-boy/">Special Rules – oh boy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/05/21/in-need-of-health-care-myself/">In need of health care myself</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/05/28/consumer-choice/">Consumer Choice</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/06/14/remember-the-tooth/">Remember the Tooth!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/07/11/back-in-the-saddle/">Back in the Saddle</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/07/back-to-work/">Back to Work</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/13/more-fun-with-reinsurance/">More Fun with Reinsurance</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/18/risk-risk-risk/">Risk, Risk, Risk</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/19/affordable-coverage-choices-for-all-americans/">Affordable Coverage Choices for All Americans</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/21/cost-sharing/">Cost-Sharing!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/24/a-little-departure/">A little departure</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/25/can-i-can-i/">Can I, Can I?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/26/finishing-up-eligibility/">Finishing up Eligibility</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/09/28/and-now-small-business/">And now, Small Business!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/10/01/best-laid-plans/">Best laid plans</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/10/02/the-day-after-blues/">The day after blues</a></li>
<li><a href="http://stayathomeeconomist.net/2012/10/04/and-a-few-addemdums-ipso-facto/">And a few addemdums, ipso facto…</a></li>
</ol>
Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-83064173926974146212012-03-16T23:07:00.000-05:002012-03-17T01:01:40.461-05:00Legislating Lies<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/we-have-no-choice-one-womans-ordeal-with-texas-new-sonogram-law" target="_blank"> article in the Texas Observer</a> has been making the rounds of late, highlighting one family's pain in the wake of Texas' controversial ultrasound law. It is a heart-wrenching story, but one part in particular jumped out at me:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;">"When the description was finally over, the doctor held up a script and said he was legally obliged to read me information provided by the state. It was about the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility and my increased chance of getting breast cancer."</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I had to go back and re-read that just to make sure I had read it correctly. Sure enough, it said "increased chance of getting breast cancer."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"Well, that can't be right," I thought. So I took a look at the actual legislation. Sure enough, there it was in the <a href="http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/HS/htm/HS.171.htm#171.012" target="_blank">Health and Safety Code, Title 2, Subtitle H, Chapter 171, Section 012:</a></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sec. 171.012. VOLUNTARY AND INFORMED CONSENT. (a) Consent to an abortion is voluntary and informed only if:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(1) the physician who is to perform the abortion informs the pregnant woman on whom the abortion is to be performed of:
</span><br />
<div class="left" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-top: 0em; text-align: left; text-indent: 19ex; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">...</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(iii) the possibility of increased risk of breast cancer following an induced abortion and the natural protective effect of a completed pregnancy in avoiding breast cancer;</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The thing is, that this is completely false. There is no medical evidence of an increased risk of breast cancer following an induced abortion. The following is from the National Cancer Institute's Fact Sheet "<a href="http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/reproductive-history" target="_blank">Reproductive History and Breast Cancer Risk</a>" and hints at the origins of the abortion-breast cancer myth (emphasis added by me and citations re-numbered):
</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Is abortion linked to breast cancer risk?</b>
A few <a class="definition" href="http://www.cancer.gov/Common/PopUps/popDefinition.aspx?id=CDR0000044120&version=Patient&language=English" style="color: #4d4d4d; text-decoration: underline;">retrospective</a> (case-control) studies reported in the mid-1990s suggested that induced abortion (the deliberate ending of a pregnancy) was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. However, these studies had important design limitations that could have affected the results. A key limitation was their reliance on self-reporting of medical history information by the study participants, which can introduce <a class="definition" href="http://www.cancer.gov/Common/PopUps/popDefinition.aspx?id=CDR0000044646&version=Patient&language=English" style="color: #4d4d4d; text-decoration: underline;">bias</a>. <a class="definition" href="http://www.cancer.gov/Common/PopUps/popDefinition.aspx?id=CDR0000044079&version=Patient&language=English" style="color: #4d4d4d; text-decoration: underline;">Prospective studies</a>, which are more rigorous in design and unaffected by such bias, have consistently shown <b>no association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk</b> (1–6). Moreover, in 2009, the Committee on Gynecologic Practice of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists concluded that <b>“more rigorous recent studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk”</b> (7). Major findings from these recent studies include the following:</span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 10px; padding-left: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.cancer.gov/images/bullet_sm_css.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Women who have had an induced abortion have the same risk of breast cancer as other women. </span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 10px; padding-left: 22px;">
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.cancer.gov/images/bullet_sm_css.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Women who have had a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) have the same risk of breast cancer as other women.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 10px; padding-left: 22px;">
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.cancer.gov/images/bullet_sm_css.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Cancers other than breast cancer also appear to be unrelated to a history of induced or spontaneous abortion.</span></li>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span></ul>
</blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
The citations are for the following articles:
</span><br />
<ol class="citations-list">
<li id="r18" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Reeves GK, Kan SW, Key T, et al. Breast cancer risk in relation to abortion: results from the EPIC study. <i>International Journal of Cancer</i> 2006; 119(7):1741–1745. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16646050" style="color: #9c3303;">[PubMed Abstract]</a></span></li>
<li id="r19" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Michels KB, Xue F, Colditz GA, Willett WC. Induced and spontaneous abortion and incidence of breast cancer among young women: a prospective cohort study. <i>Archives of Internal Medicine</i> 2007; 167(8):814–820. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17452545" style="color: #9c3303;">[PubMed Abstract]</a></span></li>
<li id="r20" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Beral V, Bull D, Doll R, Peto R, Reeves G. Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer. Breast cancer and abortion: collaborative reanalysis of data from 53 epidemiological studies, including 83,000 women with breast cancer from 16 countries. <i>Lancet</i> 2004; 363(9414):1007–1016. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15051280" style="color: #9c3303;">[PubMed Abstract]</a></span></li>
<li id="r21" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Henderson KD, Sullivan-Halley J, Reynolds P, et al. Incomplete pregnancy is not associated with breast cancer risk: the California Teachers Study. <i>Contraception</i> 2008; 77(6):391–396. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18477486" style="color: #9c3303;">[PubMed Abstract]</a></span></li>
<li id="r22" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Lash TL, Fink AK. Null association between pregnancy termination and breast cancer in a registry-based study of parous women. <i>International Journal of Cancer</i> 2004; 110(3):443–448. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15095312" style="color: #9c3303;">[PubMed Abstract]</a></span></li>
<li id="r23" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Rosenblatt KA, Gao DL, Ray RM, et al. Induced abortions and the risk of all cancers combined and site-specific cancers in Shanghai. <i>Cancer Causes and Control</i> 2006; 17(10):1275–1280. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17111259" style="color: #9c3303;">[PubMed Abstract]</a></span></li>
<li id="r24" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Committee on Gynecologic Practice. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 434: induced abortion and breast cancer risk. <i>Obstetrics and Gynecology</i> 2009; 113(6):1417–1418. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19461458" style="color: #9c3303;">[PubMed Abstract]</a></span></li>
</ol>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
Then there is this. In <a href="http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/causes/ere/workshop-report">Summary Report: Early Reproductive Events Workshop - National Cancer Institute</a> under the section "Epidemiologic Findings":
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk. (1)</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Recognized spontaneous abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk. (1)</span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The "(1)" at the end of each item is a rating of the strength of the evidence, with 1 meaning "Well-established." This is the highest rating.
And it isn't just the National Cancer Institute that maintains this position based upon the evidence:
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><ul>
<li><a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs240/en/index.html">"WHO – Induced abortion does not increase breast cancer risk"</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. World Health Organization.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/BreastCancer/MoreInformation/is-abortion-linked-to-breast-cancer">"Is Abortion Linked to Breast Cancer?"</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. American Cancer Society.</span></li>
<li>Committee On Gynecologic Practice (June 2009). "ACOG Committee Opinion No. 434: induced abortion and breast cancer risk". <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Obstetrics and Gynecology</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>113</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> (6): 1417–8.doi:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1097%2FAOG.0b013e3181ac067d">10.1097/AOG.0b013e3181ac067d</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. PMID </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19461458">19461458</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists)</span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.rcog.org.uk/files/rcog-corp/uploaded-files/NEBAbortionSummary.pdf">"The Care of Women Requesting Induced Abortion"</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. p. 9. "Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk."</span></li>
</ul>
</span><ol>
</ol>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Need I go on? Certainly, there are (usually) health benefits to carrying a pregnancy to full term, but the consensus of the medical community is that there is no link between abortion and an increased risk of breast (or any other) cancer. Yet, the Texas State Legislature has seen fit to require physicians to tell their patients that there is. In short, the law requires doctors to lie.</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Yes, abortion is a divisive and controversial issue. And let us put aside for a moment the other atrocious aspects of this legislation. It is one thing for politicians to lie. They do so on a regular basis. But requiring others to do so? Has furthering a political agenda grown so important that it has come to this?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Way to stay classy, Texas Legislature.</span></div>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-64685289874516969182012-03-12T10:27:00.004-05:002012-03-12T10:27:51.548-05:00Zack Kopplin is a Hero!<a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/12/louisiana-fights-back-against-creationist-legislators/" target="_blank">Read all about it....</a>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-21042317367221864642012-02-17T12:44:00.000-06:002012-02-17T12:44:38.484-06:00The Murder of Giordano BrunoOn this day (February 17) in 1600, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno" target="_blank">Giordano Bruno</a>, a mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and Dominican friar, having been found guilty of heresy by the Inquisition, was stripped naked and driven through the streets of Rome, then tied to a stake in the Campo de’ Fiori and burned to death. What was his horrible crime? He put forth the conjecture that other stars were suns like our own, and that they could each have planets like our own, and that those planets (gasp) have life. Such is life in a world without separation of Church and State.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Giordano_Bruno.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Giordano_Bruno.jpg" width="177" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons</td></tr>
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For more information about this fascinating individual, see the following:
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_kessler/giordano_bruno.html" target="_blank">"Giordano Bruno: The Forgotten Philosopher"</a> by John J. Kessler, Ph.D., Ch.E.</li>
<li><a href="http://galileo.rice.edu/chr/bruno.html" target="_blank">"Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)"</a> - The Galileo Project</li>
<li><a href="http://www.punkerslut.com/articles/giordanobruno.html" target="_blank">"Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)"</a> - The Great Freethinkers</li>
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Executing someone for heresy is and always has been an act of murder, pure and simple. There is no legitimate justification for it.<br />
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When I first started writing this post, it at this point transformed into a diatribe against modern threats to separation of Church and State, and those such as Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and faux-historian David Barton who keep endeavoring to return us to the bad-old-days of theocracy, culminating with the surreal spectacle of House hearings this week on the topic of birth control in which no women were included among the witnesses, a disgraceful display of the reproductive rights of women being trampled by religious orthodoxy. However, the more I wrote, the more angry I grew. I suppose that, for now, I should just leave it at that....<br />
<br />Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-3976293672144512512012-02-09T11:15:00.002-06:002012-03-22T13:33:39.652-05:00How KnottyWhile doing the <a href="http://glenmark.blogspot.com/2006/12/about-pirate-thing.html" target="_blank">pirate thing</a>, it was inevitable that I would get into studying knots, not that I ever mastered them (although I am justifiably proud of the knot-work I did on the Pride O' Bedlam's flagpole). So I was quite pleased to see this little video crop up today on my Facebook feed....<br />
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This video quite naturally lead me to the contributor's YouTube Channel, "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TyingItAllTogether" target="_blank">Tying It All Together</a>", and his website, <a href="http://www.fusionknots.com/">fusionknots.com</a>. Knots galore!<br />
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UPDATE: (March 22) And <a href="http://www.floridasportsman.com/2012/03/20/hot-to-tie-fishing-knots-lefty-kreh/" target="_blank">this</a>.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-18648399619342551742012-02-06T18:00:00.000-06:002012-02-06T20:51:32.142-06:00Comments on "Sh#t Christians Say to Atheists"There has been an Internet meme circulating of late, the posting of videos entitled "Sh#t ____ Say to ___", illustrating preposterous things commonly said by the members of the social subset in question. One that caught my eye recently was this one, made with tongue-in-cheek delivery by atheist activist Ashley Paramore of the <a href="http://www.secularstudents.org/" target="_blank">Secular Student Alliance</a>:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tU7TdZSRcpo" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Yeah, it sounds about right. Well done, Ashley. I've heard quite a few of these myself. Here are my responses. (Not to Ashley, of course. She's sharp, and already knows all of this stuff.)<br />
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<b>"But you're so nice."</b><br />
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Why thank you. I'm sure you are nice as well. But whether someone is nice or not has absolutely nothing to do with their religious beliefs. There are nice atheists, and there are atheists who are jerks, just as there are nice Christians/Jews/Buddhists/Muslims/etc., and there there are Christians/Jews/Buddhists/Muslims/etc. who are complete jerks. People are people. Some are bad. Some are good. And there is generally no correlation between that and their religious status. I have lots of friends who are atheists, and they are all nice people.<br />
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<b>"So why do you hate God?"</b><br />
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I don't hate God. I just don't think God exists. Why would I hate an entity which doesn't exist. Do you hate Athena? Do you hate the Tooth Fairy?<br />
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<b>"So you worship the Devil then?"</b><br />
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No, that would be Satanism. Atheism and Satanism are mutually exclusive. Atheists reject all superstitious beliefs, including beliefs in gods, devils, angels, and demons. It would make no sense to worship an entity which does not exist. Worshiping Satan makes no more sense to me than worshiping God. Or Odin. Or Hathor. Or door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen (who at least have the virtue of existing).<br />
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<b>"You don't. But you believe in Satan? No?"</b><br />
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I just explained that.<br />
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<b>"Look, I understand that you are just going through a phase, and that deep down you really do believe."</b><br />
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For some people, that might very well be true. I can't speak for them, though. For me, it is most certainly not a phase. I've been a non-believer for over two decades, now.<br />
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<b>"But you still believe in Jesus, right?"</b><br />
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There may or may not have been an historical figure upon whom the Jesus of the Bible was based. Sadly, there is no historical evidence of this beyond the fact that Christianity got started in the first place. There are no contemporaneous accounts by anyone who met him or witnessed events associated with his life. In fact, that are no contemporaneous accounts by scholars living in the region that even mention him at all.<br />
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If he existed, and if the Gospels are even halfway right in how they depict him (keeping in mind that the oldest of the Gospels, Mark, was written no earlier than 70 AD), then I'm sure he was a nice guy with some great ideas about how people should treat one another. You know, loving one another, helping the poor, all of that good stuff. I can get on board with that. (Of course, it depends on which Gospel you read. Each one depicts a Jesus with an entirely different personality. It really is interesting to read the Gospels in the order they were thought to be written and see how the personality depicted changes, as well as seeing the way in which each version of the story embellishes upon the previous version.)<br />
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But all of the supernatural trappings? Virgin birth? Healings? The Feeding of the Multitude? Resurrection? I don't buy it. Neither did <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible/" target="_blank">Thomas Jefferson</a>.
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By the way, <b style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Jeshua</b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> (יֵשׁ֡וּעַ), </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(the original Aramaic version of the name "Jesus") was a very common name in 1st century Judea. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there were more than one itinerant Rabbi going around by that name.</span></span></span><br />
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<b>"Come on, you were never really a true believer."</b><br />
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Ah, the old "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman" target="_blank">no true Scotsman</a>" argument. It is a logical fallacy. And completely irrelevant to the issue at hand.<br />
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<b>"Look, I know you think you've been saved, but you really just need to go to a saved church. Come on."</b><br />
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My issues with religion go beyond the dogma and practices of any one denomination. I'll pass on the brainwashing/indoctrination session, thank you very much. Been there. Done that.<br />
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<b>"But how can you even love if you don't believe in a god?"</b><br />
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"But how can you even breath if you don't believe in little angels working your lungs like a bellows?" Or, how about this one? "How can you even walk if you don't believe that the Earth is sitting on the back of a giant elephant?" Yeah, those questions make about as much sense.<br />
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We are hard-wired by evolution to love. It helps us get along, and it helps perpetuate the species. The capacity for love has no connection to religious belief.<br />
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<b>"Wow. Your life must be bleak and meaningless." </b><br />
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Why? I create my own meaning, rather than waiting to have it handed down to me by some Cosmic Overseer. And I see beauty in life, and in the wonders of the Cosmos.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Douglas Adams</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">"The Cosmos is all that there is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"> Carl Sagan, "Cosmos"</span></div>
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<b>"So what exactly do you believe in, then?"</b><br />
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I believe in reason. It works, and has a better track record than any other worldview in terms of gaining an understanding of, well, everything.<br />
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<b>"But, no, you see, this is exactly what you don't understand. It's that it takes MORE faith NOT to believe in God."</b><br />
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This argument is the biggest load I've tripe I have ever encountered, and holding such a bizarre position requires completely ignoring the definition of the word "faith." Not believing requires no faith at all. My disbelief is rooted in a complete and utter lack of evidence for the failed God Hypothesis. Faith doesn't come into play here in any way. The very concept of faith is abhorrent to me, since faith, by definition, is the abandonment of reason.<br />
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You might perhaps counter here that I said earlier that I believe in reason. Isn't that a contradiction?<br />
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No, it isn't. I believe in reason, but that belief is not based on faith. It is based upon experience, upon a Bayesian confidence inspired by past performance. I can observe reason working, and working well. Faith? Not so much.<br />
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<b>"So why do you even bother to live?" </b><br />
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I refer you to my earlier response about life being bleak and meaningless.<br />
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<b>"What if you are wrong? Eternity is a really long time, and Hell's hot."</b><br />
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Amazing how people continue to trot out <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/" target="_blank">Pascal's Wager</a>, even though that old chestnut has been <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/#5" target="_blank">thoroughly discredited in numerous ways</a>. As for Hell, there is no evidence whatsoever for its existence, nor any evidence that there would be anything of me to go there once I die.<br />
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<b>"It's not meant to be taken literally. Have you ever even read the Bible?"</b><br />
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Yes, I have read the Bible. And the more I read it, the more glaring its errors and contradictions appear. (All too frequently, I find that atheists tend to be more familiar with the Bible than most Christians, not so much in terms of being able to quote passages verbatim, which has little bearing on actually understanding the content, but rather knowing of its historical development.)<br />
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There are plenty of Christians who do take the Bible literally, and they are some of the scariest people out there. But even taking bits and pieces of it literally is giving it more credit than is due. By and large, it seems to possess about as much historical accuracy as Grimm's Fairy Tales.<br />
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<b>"But how can you be a moral person?"</b><br />
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This is based upon the misconception that morality HAS to come from God. Religions teach morals, but morals do not originate with God. They come from human beings, human beings who understand that, in order for people to survive together in a community, each member must follow certain rules for behavior. This is the origin of laws, which are the formalize representations of the rules of morality, originally codified by the State in an archaic era when Church and State were inseparable entities. The power of this arrangement was that if the fear of punishment by the state was inadequate to dissuade misbehavior, the threat of punishment in the afterlife was frequently sufficient to do the job.<br />
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But these rules were not handed down by a deity. They were crafted by human beings who recognized that one shouldn't go around killing other people, because they might just as easily go around killing you. They were created by people who wanted to remove doubts about parentage, since inheritance laws were frequently built around paternal bloodlines. They were developed by people who recognized that, in a pre-refrigeration technology desert climate, eating pork and shellfish was quite probably a public health risk.<br />
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I don't need God to tell me these things. I know that it is wrong to kill people or to hurt them. My parents taught me that, just as their parents taught them. And it makes sense to follow that rule, because treating other people badly makes it more likely that they will treat me badly, just as treating them well makes it more likely that they will treat me well. The Golden Rule is sufficient as a core for morality, and it need not be handed down from Heaven/Olympus/Valhalla. It makes sense as a basic rule to live by for people living in a society with others, bound together by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract" target="_blank">Social Contract</a>.<br />
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<b>"I mean, if there's no God, there's nobody to tell you that you shouldn't go running around and start killing people, right?"</b><br />
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See my previous response.<br />
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Frankly, it scares the willies out of me when I hear Christians say that their faith is the only thing keeping them from going on killing sprees. Such people seriously need psychological help. Their imaginary friend is the only thing keeping them from being a mass murderer? Yikes! Get help! Quickly!<br />
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By the way, if morality comes from God, why do atheists make up less than 1% of our prison population, when atheists represent a substantially larger percentage of the overall population?<br />
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And don't throw the Nazis in my face. The Nazi party frequently used religion in their propaganda to bring the German people to their way of thinking. The Nazis hated atheists, banning their writings and imprisoning and executing them right alongside Jews, homosexuals, and Communists. As for those Godless Commies, while it is true that Marx was disdainful of religion, and atheism was the official position of the Soviet Union, the evils perpetuated by the Soviet regime were rooted in the cult of personality surrounding Lenin and Stalin (itself a variant of "religion") and the abuse of power inherent in an authoritarian system (just as it is inherent in authoritarian theocracies).<br />
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<b>"Well I think you'll change your mind when you have kids of your own."</b><br />
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And why would that be the case? This seems to be a rather bizarre and vacuous argument.<br />
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<b>"You're going to go to Hell."</b><br />
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As mentioned earlier, there is no evidence whatsoever for its existence, nor any evidence that there would be anything of me to go there once I die. In the immortal words of Mark Twain:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." </span></blockquote>
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<b>"I'll pray for you."
</b><br />
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You are at liberty to do so. It literally is the least you could do.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-68322995703375940572012-02-01T22:29:00.000-06:002012-02-01T22:29:45.491-06:00Misleading Newspaper Articles on Climate Stir FirestormAstonishingly misleading OpEds published over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal ("<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #df6615; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;" target="_blank">No Need to Panic About Global Warming</a>") and Daily Mail ("<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html#ixzz1krybAlQx" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #8a7a4a; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Forget global warming — it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)</a>") have stirred up a hornets' nest. There is no need for me to dissect the rampant (and long-debunked) misinformation contained in these propaganda pieces. Others have done so quite effectively:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/">Met Office in the Media: 29 January 2012 « Met Office News Blog</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blog.ucsusa.org/dismal-science-at-the-wall-street-journal">Dismal Science at the Wall Street Journal - The Equation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/scientists-challenging-climate-science-appear-to-flunk-climate-economics/">Scientists Challenging Climate Science Appear to Flunk Climate Economics - NYTimes.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/30/while-temperatures-rise-denialists-reach-lower/">While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine</a></li>
<li><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577193270727472662.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLEThirdBucket">Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate — Letters to the Editor - WSJ.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/01/wall-street-journal-climate-change?CMP=twt_gu&fb=optOut">Wall Street Journal rapped over climate change stance | Environment | The Guardian</a></li>
<li><a href="http://skepticalscience.com/examining-the-latest-climate-denialist-plea-for-inaction.html#.TygzCwK5oFI.twitter">The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction</a></li>
<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/02/william_m_briggs_has_misunders.php">William M. Briggs has misunderstood a high-school level data graph : Greg Laden's Blog</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/">Remarkable Editorial Bias on Climate Science at the Wall Street Journal - Forbes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/which-climate-skeptics-drop-lysenko-bomb-no-i-m-not-kidding">Chris Mooney | In Which Climate “Skeptics” Drop the Lysenko Bomb. No, I’m Not Kidding….</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/29/413961/panic-attack-murdoch-wall-street-journal-finds-16-scientists-long-debunked-climate-lies/?mobile=nc">Panic Attack: Murdoch's Wall Street Journal Finds 16 Scientists to Push Pollutocrat Agenda With Long-Debunked Climate Lies | ThinkProgress</a></li>
<li><a href="http://scienceprogressaction.org/intersection/2012/01/on-global-warming-should-you-trust-the-wall-street-journal-or-chevron-exxonmobil-and-the-defense-department/">On Global Warming, Should You Trust the Wall Street Journal, or Chevron, ExxonMobil and the Defense Department??</a></li>
<li><a href="http://planet3.org/2012/01/27/the-wall-street-journal-again/">The Wall Street Journal, Again | Planet3.0</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/the-daily-mail-prints-climate-nonsense/">The Daily Mail Prints Climate Nonsense « Anti-Climate Change Extremism in Utah</a></li>
<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/01/new_british_study_confirms_cli.php">New British Studies Confirms Climate Change Consensus, Daily Mail Gets It Totally Wrong : Greg Laden's Blog</a></li>
<li><a href="http://crocodoc.com/ziAHqp7">dotderry.pdf | Crocodoc</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v65/i2/p22_s1?bypassSSO=1">Climate scientists not cowed by relentless climate change deniers | Print Edition - Physics Today</a></li>
<li><a href="http://climatecommunication.org/news/setting-the-record-straight-on-climate-change-experts-respond/">Climate Communication | Setting the Record Straight on Climate Change: Experts Respond</a></li>
<li><a href="http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2012/01/30/a-flawed-global-warming-analysis-in-the-wall-street-journal/">A Flawed Global Warming Analysis in the Wall Street Journal</a></li>
</ul>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-78184378669394464242012-01-23T17:44:00.000-06:002012-01-23T17:44:21.371-06:00Know Your NutsA handy-dandy visual reference for the wonderful world of fasteners:<br />
<a href="http://mikesenese.com/DOIT/2011/10/visual-glossary-of-screws-nuts-and-washers/">http://mikesenese.com/DOIT/2011/10/visual-glossary-of-screws-nuts-and-washers/</a>
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<br />Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-14283406437385903592011-12-16T14:14:00.000-06:002011-12-16T14:14:04.292-06:00Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011One of the great intellectual lights of our age has been extinguished.<br />
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A prolific author and regular columnist with Vanity Fair, Hitch was an intelligent and articulate voice of reason in a world where the marketplace of ideas seems increasingly dominated by the voices of irrationality. And though I seldom agreed with his politics (he was a classical conservative in the vein of William F. Buckley, not to be confused with the know-nothings of the current radical Right), his arguments were always persuasive and compelling.<br />
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As one of the "Four Horseman" of the New Atheists movement, he was a lightning rod of criticism, which he always countered with grace and aplomb, leaving those who dared debate him quivering in a tangle of their own illogic.<br />
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The Onion nailed his essence so well with a <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/fumbling-inarticulate-obituary-writer-somehow-losi,26890/" target="_blank">simple headline</a>:<br />
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Fumbling, Inarticulate Obituary Writer Somehow Losing Debate To Christopher Hitchens</h2>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-27369108921739088452011-03-13T00:36:00.003-06:002011-03-13T00:53:09.745-06:00Loss: The Good KindOnce upon a time, I could eat everything in sight, and not gain a pound. When I graduated from High School, and on up through my twenties, my weight was pretty consistently 150-155 lbs. I wore jeans with a 32" waist. But then I hit my thirties, and something happened. My metabolism slowed down. That, combined with a sedentary occupation that largely involves sitting at a computer keyboard, resulted in a gradual expansion of my waistline. I was losing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge">Battle of the Bulge</a>.<br />
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In short, I got fat.<br />
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Not ponderously fat, but noticeably overweight. It was easy enough for me to laugh away the fact with wisecracks such as "Sure, I'm in shape. After all, pear is a shape." Hey, I had become an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblate_spheroid">oblate spheroid</a>, just like the earth.<br />
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But, the fact of the matter is that I had joined the throngs of Americans who have a weight problem. I didn't like it. No sir, not one bit. So I did something about it.<br />
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It all started last Fall when one of my co-workers convinced me to be his workout partner in <a href="http://www.edb.utexas.edu/fit/getfit.php">GET FIT</a>, a 12 week fitness program for faculty and staff operated by UT-Austin's Fitness Institute of Texas. The program consisted of 3 hourly workouts per week (one cardio workout, one circuit workout, and one weight-lifting working), combined with one lunchtime lecture per week, primarily focusing on nutrition. And it worked.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjEdWyYQArK-F5VPe63bas6Y3wh0WwfSp2c9mOR2w9J7gKJIG1R39S0qV3MNJNGPu8EHQjn1XABReDDgSopNuqbwg7Wdf0tBD3VKZjg8_d_QkxCcZnfEVHtzGV2MAzJPKs8uxscAegTMU/s1600/weight.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjEdWyYQArK-F5VPe63bas6Y3wh0WwfSp2c9mOR2w9J7gKJIG1R39S0qV3MNJNGPu8EHQjn1XABReDDgSopNuqbwg7Wdf0tBD3VKZjg8_d_QkxCcZnfEVHtzGV2MAzJPKs8uxscAegTMU/s640/weight.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />
And here is how. Some of the information that follows was gleaned from the course, and some from my own research. (I'm not a doctor. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a trainer. Heck, I haven't taken a biology course since High School, and my PE credits came from Marching Band. I'm just an interested amateur who did his homework, so take any advice I give here for what it is worth. If you are serious about weight loss, it is always wise to consult a pro.)<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Do The Math</b></div>Weight loss and weight gain come down to simple arithmetic. If you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. If you consume fewer calories than you burn, you loose weight. It really is that simple, although there are some subtleties involved in optimizing and maintaining weight loss in a healthy way, and I'll be hitting the high points of those. Forget about fad diets. They are unsustainable, and sometimes harmful to your overall health (*cough*Atkins*cough*<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketoacidosis">ketoacidosis</a>*cough*). Stick to the basics. Stick to the math.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Document, Document, Document</b></div>Record what you eat and win. Count up your calories. Be aware of what you are consuming. And also record your weight. It is annoying, it is time-consuming, but it is also a useful tool for helping you to track your progress, and gives you a way of knowing how and when to modify what you are doing if you are not getting the results you expect. You can write all of this up in a journal, or there are plenty of applications and web-based tools for helping out with this. I used Livestrong.com's <a href="http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/">MyPlate</a>, which includes an extensive database of the nutritional content many common foods, including menu items from major restaurant chains and brand names commonly available in grocery stores. That makes the calorie tracking much easier.<br />
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I used the weight tracking feature of MyPlate to generate the weight chart shown above. Note that weight can vary pretty wildly from day to day. This can be somewhat smoothed out by weighing yourself consistently at the same time of day. (I always weigh myself first thing in the morning right before jumping into the shower.) Even then, day-to-day changes can be quite erratic, due to things like how big your last meal was, progress of the food through your digestive tract, and salt and water intake effecting osmotic balance. Don't sweat day-to-day changes. Look for long-term trends. <a href="http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/">The Hacker's Diet</a> website (an excellent resource created by the founder of AutoDesk as a result of his own weight loss experiences) even discusses the mathematics of performing such long-term trend analysis (hooray for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average#Weighted_moving_average">weighted moving averages</a>) and provides tools for assisting with such analysis.<br />
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I should point out that I used these tracking methods to tailor my caloric intake to a goal of losing between 1.5 and 2 lbs per week. (Realistically speaking, 2 lbs per week is the maximum that one can lose safely without running the risk of causing severe health problems. I was really pushing my luck.) I aimed for a daily caloric intake of 1200 calories, but ended up averaging about 1500 calories (with much spikiness in my caloric intake), and hit my weight loss targets. What your caloric target should be depends upon YOUR metabolism and activity level, hence the need for tracking.<br />
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Another thing I found helpful along these lines was a body-mass analysis provided as part of the GET FIT course. <a href="http://www.edb.utexas.edu/fit/bodycompfit.php">DEXA analysis</a> was performed both before and after the course to provide hard data on the composition of my body in terms of fat mass, lean tissue mass, and bone mass. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-energy_X-ray_absorptiometry">DEXA</a> (dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry) works by performing full body digital x-ray scans at two wavelengths, one of which is absorbed only by bone, and another, at lower energy, which is partially absorbed by soft tissue. The results are compared on a pixel by pixel basis to calculate the density of the material at that point, which in turn is used to calculate overall body composition.<br />
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DEXA is primarily used to diagnose and assess conditions involving reduced bone density, such as osteoporosis, but it is also useful for calculating fat composition vs. lean body mass. That said, there are other techniques for measuring body fat which do not involve radiation (even though this involved quite mild levels). Why did the GET FIT program choose this one? I don't know, but I suspect that somebody is getting some research publications out of it. I should keep an eye on <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/">PubMed</a> for the names of anyone involved in running the program.<br />
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I was a bit disappointed to learn from my follow-up DEXA assessment that my muscle mass had not measurably increased. But, on the bright, it had not decreased either, and my body fat percentage had gone down from 37.8%, which, clinically speaking, is obese, to 30.7%, which is still in the overweight range, but definitely an improvement. (I briefly flirted with the idea of posting images of my DEXA scan here, but the soft-tissue scan is a bit...revealing. I decided not to go "Full Monty.")<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Portion Control</b></div>What seems to have made the biggest difference for me in achieving my weight loss goals, more than being careful of what kinds of foods I ate and how much I exercised, was how MUCH I ate. Let's face it, portion sizes have gone crazy in our culture. Go to a restaurant and order a salad, and you'll wind up with a bowl of salad made from entire head of lettuce (and drenched in a vat of fatty salad dressing). Order a small drink, and you'll end up with what would have been called a large when I was a child. Portion sizes have become inflated beyond reason. Is it any wonder that obesity is so rampant in this country?<br />
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The solution? Don't eat as much. Really. Having been raised by parents who grew up during the Depression, I always tended to feel a little guilty if I didn't clean my plate. No more! Get a huge meal at a restaurant? Eat half of it, and take the remainder home to make another meal. Two breakfast tacos? No thanks. One will suffice. Hungry Man frozen dinner? No thanks. This little Smart Ones entrée should do just fine.<br />
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The belly complains at first, but give the stomach a bit of time to shrink down a bit, and you'll grow accustomed to smaller portion sizes.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Garbage In, Garbage Out</b></div>That having been said, watching WHAT you eat is indeed important. Fast food, fried food, refined sugars and flours, high-fructose corn syrup (I'll work up a posting on the perils of THAT at a later date), hydrogenated fats: we are bombarded with foods that are bad for us. A major step towards good health is eating smarter. That means more fruits and veggies, more whole grains, more fiber, and choosing leaner cuts of meat. That also means fewer of the bad things listed at the beginning of this paragraph. Part of this involves simple common sense, but it also calls for a bit of learning. It is important to bone up on <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fat/NU00262">the differences</a> between unsaturated fats (good) and saturated, hydrogenated or trans fats (bad). It is important to learn <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Cholesterol/AboutCholest...ol_UCM_305561_Article.jsp">the difference</a> between HDL cholesterol (good) and LDL cholesterol (bad) and how added dietary fiber helps reduce LDL. It means learning about the three categories of macro nutrients (lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates) which make up our diet and how the body uses them. It means doing some homework.<br />
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Notice that I "fewer of the bad things." Just because you are trying to lose weight, it doesn't mean that you have to deprive yourself entirely of the yummy (but unhealthy) foods you love. It is okay to indulge yourself from time to time. Just the other day, I enjoyed a fried seafood platter for lunch. Not exactly the healthiest of choices. The evening of the last day of GET FIT, I split an order of <a href="http://www.perryssteakhouse.com/locations-menus/austin/dessert-menu">Bananas Foster</a> with my workout partner. The key is moderation. Splurge from time to time, just enough to keep cravings at bay and to give yourself a treat. Just don't do it every day. Well, you can give yourself a treat every day. Just make it a healthy one. And TRACK THOSE CALORIES.<br />
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As for vitamins, if you are worried that you are not getting all of the micro-nutrients you need from your diet, then by all means take them. Just don't go overboard. Otherwise, all you are doing is turning yourself into a source of overly-expensive urine.<br />
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Speaking of which, drink plenty of water. Most of us don't get nearly enough, and it does help with weight loss.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Timing Is Everything</b></div>Have you ever noticed that nutritionists and weight loss experts tend to recommend a large number of small meals spread throughout the day, rather than a small number of larger meals? (It seems that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S6iXcx9pLA">the Hobbits had it right</a>.) Have you ever wondered why?<br />
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Well, it turns out that the body processes calories on a just-in-time basis. It doesn't matter what you did hours before eating or what you will do hours after eating. If you don't burn your caloric intake within a few hours of consuming it, those calories WILL be converted to fat. Use it or gain it!<br />
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The upshot is, spread your caloric intake out over the course of the day. The only times your body really needs a higher dose of calories is for breakfast (when your body has gone for many hours running on reserves, hence the need to "break your fast") and right before and/or after a hard workout. When athletes "hit the wall", the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycogen">glycogen</a> reserves in their muscles have been depleted. Their muscles no longer have the energy needed to move. That is why carb-loading with a mixture of simple sugars (for short-term energy) and complex carbs (for long term energy) is used before strenuous exertion such as workouts or athletic competitions. Workouts should also be followed immediately (within half an hour) by a mix of complex carbs, sugars, and proteins. The complex carbs and sugars are for replenishing the muscles' glycogen reserves, and the proteins are to help feed those aching (and, hopefully, growing) muscles. (More on this in the next section.) Protein bars and shakes are a popular option for this.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>No Pain, No Loss</b></div>You can lose weight without exercise, but it isn't a good idea. The simple fact of the matter is that when the body is short on calories (as it has to be in order for weight loss to occur), it will metabolize whatever is at hand, and it is easier for the body to metabolize the proteins in your muscles than the fat in your beer belly or love handles. Weight loss without exercise translates into not only fat loss, but also muscle loss. By exercising while dieting, that process is combated by putting your muscles into a state where they are constantly trying to rebuild, slurping up amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) from the bloodstream to pump up the muscle fibers, hopefully at a faster rate than your milkshake and burger-deprived metabolism is chowing down on them.<br />
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Another major benefit of exercise when trying to lose weight is this: higher muscle mass translates into a higher base metabolic rate. The more muscles you have, the more calories you burn even when you are doing nothing more than sitting on the sofa watching television. What's more, in addition to the increased caloric burn rate experienced directly while exercising, that elevated burn rate carries over for a few hours after working out as the elevated metabolic rate gradually cools down. (Calories burned WHILE exercising are only a small slice of all of this. My three hours of exercise per week during the GET FIT program probably translated, at most, into about 1000 calories burned per week. The main benefits really are the carryover burn and the increased base rate.)<br />
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There are two primary categories of exercise: aerobic and resistance (weight) training, and any workout program should contain elements of both. Aerobic workouts are geared towards increasing heartbeat and respiration, and include activities such as running (or even walking), dancing, biking, or using an elliptical machine. After about 20 minutes of performing such activities, the metabolism enters into a state in which calories are burned at an elevated rate, which makes aerobic exercises a perfect match for those seeking to lose weight. Aerobic activities also help improve stamina and general cardiovascular health. Ideally, one's pulse should be kept in a specific target range for the duration of the aerobic workout. If the pulse rate is to low, the full benefits of the workout are not being realized. If the pulse is too high, well, then one is running the risk of harm. The specific <a href="http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4736">target range</a> is primarily dependent upon one's age. A good rule of thumb is 220 minus age.<br />
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Resistance or strength training is specifically geared towards building strength, power (they really are two different things), and muscle mass. You may not be aiming for an Atlas body, but increasing muscle mass and tone even somewhat is still desirable for the reasons described earlier. Resistance training methods include weight-lifting (with either free weights or exercise machines) as well as exercises which use the body's own weight as the source of resistance, such as pull-ups and push-ups.<br />
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When doing resistance training, remember that the goal is to push the muscles right to the point of failure. You want to fail. That is the only way to push the muscles into strengthening themselves. How much resistance? How many repetitions? In general, find the absolute maximum you can lift just once (without hurting yourself), then subtract about 10 or 20% of the weight. Use that resistance and do as many repetitions (or "reps") as you can, pushing yourself to the point of failure. Just when you think you can't do any more, squeeze out one more rep. (Your goal should be to do somewhere between 6 and 15 reps. If you can do more, you aren't using enough resistance. If you can't do that many, you are using too much resistance.) Take a breather for a few minutes, then do another set. Rest again, then do another set. And again. Then move on to another exercise. It is hard. It is agonizing. But it is rewarding.<br />
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At some point, you probably had a Health teacher or P.E. coach tell you that sore muscles the day after a workout are caused by lactic acid. Don't believe it. Sure, lactic acid will cause some soreness immediately following a workout, but all the <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/why_do_muscles_hurt_after_exer.php">lactic acids are reprocessed</a> well before the next day rolls around. What actually causes the soreness is that an intensive workout introduces a multitude of microscopic rips in the muscle tissue. This is good thing. That triggers biochemical signals which tell the metabolism "Hey, we need to build some more muscle over here. Haul in the amino acids." (Of course, I'm greatly oversimplifying the process here. Biochemical processes don't like to be anthropomorphized.) At any rate, revel in the pain. It is sign that the muscles are a construction zone. Whichever muscles you've worked to the point of soreness, don't work those the next day. Give them a day off to rebuild. Otherwise, you run the risk of overtraining, which is counterproductive.<br />
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Here, again, a little homework is in order. Learn the major muscle groups and which exercises target them. And, perhaps more importantly, learn to do the exercises properly and safely, with good form. Failure to do that will almost certainly result in injury.<br />
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Don't have access to a gym? Go for a jog for your aerobic workout. For your resistance training, use your own weight. Push-ups require no equipment other than a patch of floor, and pull-ups can be done with an inexpensive bar. Can't do a pull-up? No problem. Begin by doing assisted pull-ups. Stand on a chair next to the bar and lower yourself down (something which most people should be able to do at least once). Climb back on the chair and repeat. This is called "working the negatives," and the concept can be applied to a broad variety of exercises.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Moving Forward</b></div>When the GET FIT program concluded at the end of November, I signed up for a membership at the Cedar Park Recreation Center, which is on my way home from work and has a reasonably well-equipped gym. I must admit, though, that I let my membership lapse when New Years rolled around. Gyms do have a tendency to get packed around that time of year. I'm still careful about what I eat, and my weight has stayed fairly consistently around 178 (down from 211 when I started GET FIT). And I'm down to a 33" waistline. Ideally, I would like to lose a bit more weight, as well as increasing muscle mass a bit. In short, it is time to get back to the gym.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-65727680253947799162011-02-24T11:04:00.001-06:002011-02-24T11:05:48.862-06:00I've Been...BusyBusy indeed, and not just with my day job.<br />
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I originally set up the <a href="http://glenmartin.wordpress.com/">Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot?</a> blog as a place to tinker with WordPress' support for <a href="http://www.latex-project.org/">LaTeX</a>. In the last month or so, it has taken on a life of its own, serving as a repository for notes and links related to my efforts to clear away the cobwebs in my brain on topics related to physics. I'm especially proud of the ever-growing timeline of the development of modern physics, complete with links (where available) to the original source papers documenting the discoveries. (After all, if one truly wishes to understand an advanced physics topic, what better way than to read the document in which its discover introduces it to the world?) And, hopefully soon, I'll be posting some translations from French of some of the works of Henri Poincaré.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-59356263225895910032011-02-24T10:54:00.000-06:002011-02-24T10:54:27.716-06:00Science Education for the MassesHere are a few lovely sites I've stumbled upon today which provide videos illustrating scientific concepts in layman's terms:<br />
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<ul><li><a href="http://www.sixtysymbols.com/index.html">Sixty Symbols - Physics and Astronomy videos</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.veritasium.com/">Veritasium Science Videos</a></li>
</ul><div>Bravo! We need more outreach like this.</div><div><br />
</div><div>And, of course, let us not forget <a href="http://khanacademy.org/">KhanAcademy.org</a>, which provides high-school level video lectures on math, science, and other topics.</div>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-40107054213176781322011-02-24T10:45:00.001-06:002011-03-13T11:49:54.236-05:00George Orwell on How to Make a Proper Cup of TeaI initially found this at <a href="http://www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm">www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm</a>, which does not appear to be reachable at the moment, so I've rescued it from Google's cache....<br />
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<blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">A Nice Cup of Tea</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">By George Orwell</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Evening Standard</i>, 12 January 1946.</div><br />
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If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.<br />
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.<br />
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When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:<br />
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First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.<br />
Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.<br />
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.<br />
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.<br />
Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.<br />
Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.<br />
Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.<br />
Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.<br />
Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.<br />
Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.<br />
Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.<br />
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Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.<br />
These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.</blockquote><br />
(taken from <i>The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell</i>, Volume 3, 1943-45, Penguin ISBN, 0-14-00-3153-7)Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-75312388685650273722010-06-29T21:48:00.003-05:002010-06-29T23:11:22.624-05:00My Hobby: Collecting Hobbies<div style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I have come to the realization that there is a hazard inherent in possessing a broad range of interests. I have a tendency to accumulate hobbies and projects. This can be problematic for someone with the attention span of a gnat. Something (usually stumbled upon serendipitously) grabs my interest, I throw myself into it with zeal for a while, researching it, cobbling together just enough resources to get my feet wet, then.... Ooh, shiney! Something else captures my attention.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Rinse, repeat....<br />
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And so it goes. Over time, my home fills with the detritus of unfinished projects, a mishmash of half-finished wonders and curiosities. (There's another hobby of mine: finding opportunities to use the word "detritus." It tickles me to say it. Detritus! Hehe.) And, all along, I think to myself "I'll get around to finishing that...someday." Consequently, I've become somewhat notorious for starting projects and not finishing them. The rare occasion when I DO finish a project is therefore truly cause for celebration.</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><br />
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<div style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">So, as an aid to myself in organizing and prioritizing these hobbies and projects, and to give others a bit of insight into my interests, I present my hitherto unknown "List of Hobbies and Projects," complete with annotations regarding their current status. Enjoy.<br />
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<ul style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Genealogy</b><br />
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As hobbies go, I have to admit that this is one with which I've had more luck sticking to than others. I really got started in 2004, just a matter of months before my mother passed away. I've been fortunate enough to be able to dig back far enough to intersect with the work of other researchers on many of my family lines, and I've been focusing on filling in the gaps. For the past three years, I've served on the Board of Trustees of the <a href="http://www.pacesociety.org/">Pace Society of America</a>, an organization devoted to genealogical research involving the Pace surname (although I've sadly missed the last two national meetings). I've gone about as far as I can go with online research (except whenever sites such as ancestry.com add new content), and am in dire need of visiting numerous courthouses and cemeteries around the country, as well as needing to visit the University of Tennessee Special Collections Library in Knoxville to study the <a href="http://dlc.lib.utk.edu/f/fa/fulltext/0002.html">Rhea Papers</a>. I'm also needing to consolidate and compile the results of my research thus far into a more easily-digestible format, which I've really only done thus far with <a href="http://martin.techwind.com/glenn/">one of my family lines</a>.<br />
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A few years ago, my interest in genealogy briefly intersected with my interest in programming. I had the brilliant idea of writing a family tree viewer which would allow the user to navigate through familial relationships in a rich 3D environment. I studied the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDCOM">GEDCOM</a> specification and started planning out how I would write a GEDCOM parser. But, before I had a chance to write a single line of code, a new version of MacFamilyTree came out with the very feature I had envisioned. Timing, as they say, is everything.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Wet-Plate Collodian Photography</b><br />
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Some of the oldest objects in my possession are a handful of "tintype" family photographs dating back to just after the Civil War. In researching how to care for and preserve these photographs (even going so far as to consult with an expert on the subject at the <a href="http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/">Harry Ransom Center</a>), it was only natural for me to wish to delve deeply into how they were made. Combined with a pre-existing long-standing interest in photography, a desire to try my own hand at it followed naturally. Heading along the path to making my own "handmade" photographs, I have acquired several antique lenses, as well as materials for building a camera body. The only thing currently standing in my way is figuring out a way to mount my box-joint jig to the mitre guide of my table saw, a task which I probably could have completed in less time than it took to write this article.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Bookbinding</b><br />
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Once upon a time (in 1993, in fact), while performing at the <a href="http://www.texrenfest.com/">Texas Renaissance Festival</a>, I portrayed for a time a pikeman in the Newmarket Guard. In fleshing out the background details of the character, I decided that his occupation was that of bookbinder. Naturally, the next step was to research that skill a bit such that I would "know the lingo" and be able to convincingly pass myself off as such a craftsman. Before I knew it, I was actually wanting to try my hand at bookbinding. I acquired several books on the topic, but was stymied on acquiring certain tools and materials. (The nascent Web had not yet become a hotbed of e-commerce where one could obtain just about anything imaginable.) And so, this emerging hobby was nipped in the bud, never to be pursued further. But, perhaps someday....<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Galvanic Etching</b><br />
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For several years now, I've been intrigued by the "steampunk" aesthetic, and I have been mightily impressed by the work of some of the artists and craftsmen who have embraced it. Among these is one Jake Vonn Slatt, who, among other things, has embraced "<a href="http://steampunkworkshop.com/electroetch.shtml">galvanic etching</a>" as an artform. (It is essentially the same process as electro-plating, except that the piece being worked is placed on the opposite electrode such that metal is removed rather than being added.) It is a rather simple process, and I've acquired most of the tools and materials necessary to try my hand at this, but simply have yet to bring them all together. I was distracted by some other interest, but do not recall what....<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Clockmaking</b><br />
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As with bookbinding, clockmaking is another potential hobby which has never really gone past the research stage. <a href="http://www.wrsmithtelegraphkeys.com/books.htm">Books</a> and <a href="http://www.lautard.com/clockpla.htm">plans</a> eagerly await my order once I have the time. (Yeah, I know that things hate to be anthropomorphized.)<br />
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</ul><ul style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Woodworking</b><br />
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I've long enjoyed engaging in woodworking projects, especially with my brothers. We've built a bed frame for my spare bedroom, but we still need to complete the headboard. To really do it the way I would like to, I need to make some progress on another project listed next, a CNC routing machine. I'm also wanting to build a 12' x 16' gambrel roof storage shed (with loft) for my backyard, but I need to finish drawing up plans so that I can apply for a building permit. Once that is built, I'll be able to free up a tremendous amount of space in my garage. And, at some point down the road, I would like to build some nice dining room chairs to replace the mishmash of chairs I currently have. Of course, good hardwoods are expensive.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>CNC Milling/Routing Machine</b><br />
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You may have noticed a pattern thus far: I like to make things. An important part of that is having the right tools. And the geek in me likes for those tools to be computer-controlled. I desperately want to build a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC">CNC</a> router or milling machine. About a year ago, I wrote a rudimentary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-code">G-CODE</a> interpreter, G-CODE being the standard programming language for driving CNC devices. However, my big stumbling block has been interfacing the computer with the physical world. It was a heck of a lot easier in the old days when all computers came with old-fashioned serial and parallel ports. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS232">RS232</a> was easy to deal with. Now things are getting easier again. Over the weekend, I acquired an Arduino micro-controller.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Arduino Programming</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.arduino.cc/">Arduino</a> is an open-source hardware and software platform for providing digital and analog interfaces between computers and the physical world for rapid prototyping. I've made excellent progress thus far with the simple sample projects described in the book which accompanied my Arduino, and now I'm wondering where I can get my hands on bulk quantities of discarded floppy drives so that I can cannibalize their stepper motors. Soon, nothing will be able to stop my army of robotic minions and... Oops, inner monologue on speakerphone again.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Gardening</b><br />
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I've come to a stark realization. As much as I enjoy gardening and having access to fresh, home grown veggies, the soil does does not get along with me. Nor do the searing hot central Texas summers. My current garden, an experiment in utilizing the <a href="http://www.squarefootgardening.com/">square-foot gardening method</a>, has resulted in mediocre, weak, malnourished bug-eaten plants. The geek inside of me has lately been whispering to me, "Take it inside. Use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroponics">aeroponics</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED#Sustainable_lighting">LED lighting</a>. Nutrients, moisture, lighting, and temperature will be tightly controlled. Arduino-controlled. With a camera-bot to automatically take time-lapse images of each plant each day. Wouldn't that be cool? Monitor and control through the Web. And enjoy fresh tomatoes, peppers, onions, and collard greens year-round." Tempting, and even doable, but likely overkill. Besides, I think I should master more basics first.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Motorcycles</b><br />
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About a year and a half ago, I finally took the <a href="http://www.msf-usa.org/">MSF RiderCourse</a> and added the Motorcycle Class to my Driver License. Alas, I've not yet procured a bike. I'm not wanting to go further in debt, so I would rather not finance, but other expenses have kept me from being able to save enough for an outright cash purchase. But I am soooo Jonesing to ride....<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Aviation</b><br />
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A decade ago, I was taking flying lessons, but never finished. My biggest mistake was buying a house on the side of town opposite from the airport. My biggest regret, never getting to build and fly a <a href="http://www.cozyaircraft.com/">Cozy Mk. IV</a>. Occasionally, the skies still call to me....<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Painting/drawing</b><br />
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When I was a kid, if I wasn't reading, I was drawing. I come from an artistically-inclined family, and I enjoy creating art, yet I've done so precious little since reaching adulthood. I miss it, and really should get back into it. I keep telling myself that....<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Sailing</b><br />
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Growing up far inland upon the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llano_Estacado">Llano Estacado</a>, the sea has always held a certain allure and fascination for me. To this day, visiting the shore remains a special treat for me. When I started <a href="http://glenmark.blogspot.com/2006/12/about-pirate-thing.html">portraying a pirate character at TRF</a> and delved into character research, that interest only grew. I've even learned during the course of my genealogical research that one of my ancestors, <a href="http://martin.techwind.com/rhea/">Matthew "The Rebel" Campbell</a>, was a ship's master. I long to sail, and I've procured a vessel: a 24' homebuilt <a href="http://piver-nugget.blogspot.com/">Piver Nugget trimaran</a>, which I have decided to dub "Fiddler's Green." Alas, I've not yet put it in the water. It is as old as I, and desperately in need of work, mainly paint and some fiberglass repair. I've removed the outboard hulls (the "amas"), and have stripped the old paint from them. I've also erected hull cradles to hold them upright while I redo the fiberglass on their tops, which will be the next step. That will have to wait until September or October when it is no longer too hot out to work with epoxy resin. After the fiberglass is repaired, I'll repaint the amas, then move on to the primary hull. Working on that will be a fairly big challenge, especially when it comes to removing the boat from the trailer and flipping it to repaint the hull. I have a plan regarding how to go about that, but it will be a daunting task.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Music Theory</b><br />
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From the 5th grade through my first semester of college, I played the trombone. Sure, I was taught how to read music, but I was never exposed to the true fundamentals of music theory. All of my life, I had been puzzled about why musical scales are structured the way they are. What is the real difference between major and minor scales? Why does the only major scale in Western music without sharps or flats start on a C rather than an A as one would expect? Over the years, I've managed to find the answers to questions such as these through independent study, and on more than one occasion, I've been tempted to write an introductory text on the topic for the benefit of others with similar questions (as opposed to most existing introductory texts, which seem to focus on notation). After all, I have such copious quantities of spare time.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Instrument Making</b><br />
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I've mentioned my enjoyment of making things, as well as my interest in woodworking. One area where I've wanted to apply these interests is in making musical instruments. I suppose that started when I got my hands on a concertina (which I am still endeavoring to learn to play). It is a cheap, mass-produced 20-button Anglo concertina, with a garish, shiny red finish and plastic buttons that tend to stick. I look online at higher-end models that, realistically-speaking, are well outside of my price range (especially for an instrument for which I've not yet mastered the rudiments), and I think to myself, "Ooh, so pretty. I think I could build one of those." In fact, I probably could. The bellows would be made in much the same way as the bellows for the wet-plate camera that I'm planning to build. I've disassembled the concertina I own (hoping to figure out a way to fix the sticking buttons - I think I need more robust button springs), and the internal structure is rather simple, but I don't really see the point in expending the effort until such time as I really learn to play the instrument. If I do end up building one, I imagine that it will be a 30-button model to open up the range of available keys.<br />
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More recently, I had an opportunity to try my hand at playing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowed_psaltery">bowed psaltery</a> while visiting Scarborough Faire. It is a rather simple instrument, both to play and, seemingly, to build, and might serve well as a starter luthier project. I've found several sites on the Web describing how to do so, but have not yet taken any steps in the direction of making it a reality. After all, I already have plenty of projects on my plate.<br />
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On top of that, I wouldn't mind trying my hand at building a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_Gurdy">hurdy gurdy</a>. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is because it is an instrument which few people have ever seen or heard. Most people would not have even heard OF it were it not for the Donavan song of the same name. (When he wrote the song, Donovan supposedly had never seen or heard the instrument, but wrote it for a friend who was in a band called "Hurdy Gurdy.") Helping to bring such an ancient instrument back from obscurity holds some appeal for me.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>"Spyglass' Wee Book O' Sea Shanties"</b><br />
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One little side project that I work on now and again is compiling a small booklet of sea shanties (a holdover from my days of portraying Spyglass), transposing as I go into the keys of C and G (the keys which are playable on my concertina). The first step was figuring out how to get <a href="http://lilypond.org/web/">Lilypond</a> (a music engraving program) to <a href="http://glenmark.blogspot.com/2009/11/making-lilypond-work-with-texshop.html">integrate</a> with <a href="http://www.latex-project.org/">LaTeX</a> (the venerable typesetting program). Once that hurdle was overcome, I began, bit by bit, getting some of my favorite shanties down in print, but have only completed a few thus far. I also plan on including some hand-drawn illustrations, an opportunity to resurrect my drawing skills.<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Physics</b><br />
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When I withdrew from grad school in January of 1992, I did so with every intention of eventually returning. Alas, as the years have gone by, the prospects of that actually happening have whithered more and more. Putting aside for a moment the income crunch while attending school (which could be partially offset by attending on a part-time basis), I can't really imagine the prospect of handling the paycut afterwards that would accompany getting a post-doc position. That having been said, I do miss it, and regret having what was intended to be my profession sidelined into an avocation. In an effort to jump-start the old neurons, I've engaged in a program of self-study, both to review the things I've forgotten, and to push out beyond what I learned in grad school. My primary areas of interest are the foundations of quantum theory, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem">measurement problem</a>, <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-collapse/">collapse theory</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_theory">gauge theory</a>. (If I ever get my head around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_algebra">Lie algebras</a>, I'll consider myself lucky.)<br />
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I'm currently re-reading Rindler's <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=0J_dwCmQThgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=essential+relativity&source=bl&ots=s4jmb0Z3dh&sig=TXhH89f-zc9CYun4u44-hX3kSLI&hl=en&ei=Ka0qTLCDF8L58AartZ3SCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false"><i>Essential Relativity</i></a>. (I had the pleasure of meeting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Rindler">Wolfgang Rindler</a> at a conference when I was an undergrad. Very nice fellow.) Next on deck will be <i>A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics</i> by Ian D. Lawrie, <i>Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics</i> by Feynman and Weinberg, <i>Feynman's Thesis</i>, <i>A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem</i> by Mattuck, <i>The Theory of Fundamental Processes</i> by Feynman, <i>Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell</i> by Zee, <i>Foundations of Space-Time Theories</i> by Friedman, <i>The Inflationary Universe</i> by Guth, <i>Supersymmetry</i> by Binétruy, and <i>A First Course in String Theory</i> by Zwiebach. This will take a while....<br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Ground Penetrating RADAR</b><br />
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I don't recall the details, but I suspect that it was through a documentary sometime in the early to mid 90's that I was first exposed to the concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar">ground penetrating radar</a>, primarily as applied to the field of archeology. It caught my interest, and I have long pondered ways of improving the functionality of the technology. Of late, I've wondered if <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_aperture_radar">synthetic aperture radar</a> technology could be applied to the problem, or perhaps even nascent q<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_radar">uantum radar</a> technologies. Up to this point, this has been primarily an intellectual exercise, but I sometimes find myself tinkering with the prospect of building my own GPR rig for experimentation, a prospect which has recently been bolstered by finding an account by a grad student of <a href="http://www.mit.edu/~gr20603/Dr.%20Gregory%20L.%20Charvat%20Projects/$240%20High%20Res%20Rail%20SAR.html">building a simple, inexpensive SAR setup</a> using recycled hardware. Hmm. I do have an old microwave oven sitting around whose <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetron">magnetron</a> would make a nice emitter....<br />
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<div style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">This list is by no means comprehensive. I've not included a litany of home improvement projects and repairs that I have queued up, nor my desire to <a href="http://www.compuvices.com/smoker.shtml">transform</a> the old propane tank sitting in my back yard into a smoker. Not to mention... well, you get the point. There is always something to do. If nothing else, I am never bored!</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"><br />
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<div style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">If there is a common strand running through all of this, it seems that most of these projects tend to get held up by one or more of three limitations: money, time, and energy. Regarding the latter, have I mentioned that I am intrinsically lazy? After a long day of work (and a long commute), it is so much easier to plop down in front of the TV with my laptop, researching potential new hobbies.</div>Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-46816154983582939972010-06-23T16:19:00.003-05:002010-06-29T23:09:17.380-05:00Ooh, toys....Meet <a href="http://www.chumby.com/">Chumby</a>, a digital picture frame/internet appliance with a 3.5 touchscreen display. Essentially an ARM device running Linux, it was designed by its creator, Andrew "bunny" Huang, to be hackable, and he even encourages creative uses of the device. It is even available in <a href="http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKCH1">kit form</a>. Some have even tinkered with <a href="https://boconnor.is-a-geek.com/pmwiki/index.php?n=Geek.Chumby">connecting it</a> to <a href="http://www.arduino.cc/">Arduino</a> devices, an idea which has sent my mind reeling with ideas, including using this combination as the controlling mechanism for a small CNC router that I've been wanting to build for quite some time.<br />
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Now, at just over a c-note, the Chumby packs in a lot of value, but doesn't offer much in the way of screen real estate. That's where the just-announced <a href="http://www.slashgear.com/insignia-infocast-chumby-powered-display-gets-hack-instructions-2290927/">Insignia Infocast</a> comes in. Available exclusively through <a href="http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Insignia+-+Infocast+8%22+Internet+Media+Display/9854795.p?id=1218185322584&skuId=9854795&st=infocast&cp=1&lp=1">Best Buy</a>, the Infocast is basically a scaled-up Chumby with an 8" display. And Mr. Huang has <a href="http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=1140">provided details</a> on the Infocast for would-be hackers. Ooh, the possibilities....<br />
<HR>UPDATE: Arduino and Chumby procured. Let the fun begin...Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1823047306722101134.post-72634632345566287342010-06-18T15:10:00.004-05:002010-06-19T23:41:51.585-05:00Of Bees and Spherical ChickensIn tackling problems in science and engineering, a vital tool in the problem-solving arsenal is making assumptions which simplify the calculations by ignoring or minimizing the contributions of factors which have little or no impact on the outcome. Examples of such simplifying assumptions include ignoring friction and air resistance, or, in the case of particle physics, ignoring the effects of gravity. So pervasive is the use of such simplifying assumptions, that it has spawned a joke which eventually made its way into an episode of CBS' "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YTBmwt34uM">The Big Bang Theory."</a> (Finally, a series about My People!) This practice of simplification even became fodder for an <a href="http://xkcd.com/669/">xkcd comic</a>.<br />
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This practice of making simplifying assumptions can be extremely useful. It can transform calculations which might ordinarily require a supercomputing cluster into something that can literally be calculated on the back of an envelope. But it can be taken too far. There is something of an art to knowing what can be safely ignored and what actually has an impact, and it is largely experience which provides the proper guidance. When BP recently attempted to place a collection dome over the gushing well-head in the Gulf of Mexico, the effort failed because BP engineers had failed to take into account the fact that methane does not behave the same at such great depths as it does as standard temperature and pressure. As a result, the methane (at high pressures and low temperature) combined with seawater to form <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate">methane hydrate</a>, essentially a methane ice, thus clogging the collection pipe.<br />
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There is another example of oversimplification and its consequences which is even more broadly known among the populace, the popular bit of folklore which states that science had once proven that bees cannot fly (despite obvious evidence to the contrary). Everyone has heard this little nugget, which has become so pervasive in our culture as to become a cudgel for science-bashing, and several scholars have dug into the history of this tale to determine where it originated.<br />
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In the October 1996 issue of <i>Physics World</i>, an article appeared entitled <a href="http://physicsworldarchive.iop.org/index.cfm?action=summary&doc=9/10/phwv9i10a30@pwa-xml">"The strange case of the bumble-bee that flew"</a> by Ken Zetie. In it, he wrote:<br />
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<blockquote><b>But how did the myth about bees not being able to fly start? When does the story date back to? J McMasters states that the story was prevalent in the German technical universities in the 1930s, starting with the students of the aerodynamicist Ludwig Prandtl at Gottingen. The story goes that a noted Swiss aerodynamicist, whom McMasters does not name, was talking to a biologist at dinner. The biologist asked about the flight of bees and the Swiss gentleman did a "back-of-the-napkin" calculation of the kind I described earlier, assuming a rigid, smooth wing and so on. Of course, he found that there was insufficient lift and went off to find out the correct answer. </b></blockquote><blockquote><b>In the meantime, the biologist put the word around that bees could not fly, presumably to show that nature was greater than engineering, and the media picked up the story. The truth, then as now, wasn't newsworthy, so a correction was never publicized. The people I meet, therefore, continue to tell me that science is a load of crock because it once proved that bumblebees cannot fly. And they will not hear otherwise, especially not from a scientist.</b></blockquote><br />
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This "J McMasters" as it turns out was a Boeing aerospace engineer named John H. McMasters, who had earlier published an article about this very topic in the journal <i>American Scientist:</i> "The Flight of the Bumblebee and Related Myths of Entomological Engineering" (<i>Am. Sci.</i>, <b>Vol. 77</b>, pp. 164-8). In an <a href="http://www.math.niu.edu/~rusin/known-math/98/bees">e-mail exchange</a> discussing this article, McMasters reveals that he had been told that the Swiss aerodynamicist in question was one Jacob Ackeret, a well-established figure in the field of supersonic aerodynamics, but this could not be verified, so Ackeret's name was left out of the article. McMasters goes on to relate that, following the publication of his article, he was inundated with mail, including Xerox copies of page 8 of a French monograph on insect flight by the famed entomologist August Magnan, <i>Le Vol Des Insects</i> (Hermann and Cle, Paris, 1934), which contains the following line:<br />
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<blockquote><b>Tout d'abord poussé par ce qui fait en aviation, j'ai appliqué aux insectes les lois de la résistance de l'air, et je suis arrivé avec M. SAINTE-LAGUE a cette conclusion que leur vol est impossible.</b></blockquote><br />
<i>En anglais</i>, this reads:<br />
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<blockquote><b>Driven by the fact of aviation, I have applied the laws of the resistance of air to insects, and I arrived, with Monsieur Sainte-Lague, at the conclusion that their flight is impossible.</b></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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Mr. Sainte-Lague appears to be the mathematician <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB">André Sainte-Laguë</a>, who was no light-weight in his field. Whoever originated this meme regarding the inability of bees to fly, whether it was Jacob Ackeret or the team of Magnan and Sainte-Laguë, we are talking about knowledgeable, credible scientists and engineers. How could such individuals reach such bizarre conclusions?<br />
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First of all, it should be pointed out that the account given by McMasters clearly depicts Ackeret (or whatever other Swiss engineer it might have been) clearly proclaiming his result with tongue firmly planted in cheek. He obviously recognized that assumptions he made in performing his back-of-the-napkin computations presented an overly-simplified analysis of an horrendously complex topic, thus leading to a clearly preposterous conclusion. As for Magnan and Sainte-Laguë, no information is provided regarding their analysis, but it is fairly safe to assume (if you will pardon the conceit) that they also made the mistake of oversimplifying the problem. If one tries to analyze the wings of a bee as if they operated like aircraft wings, the lift they generate is clearly too low to allow flight. But bee wings don't work like aircraft wings. Thanks to high-speed photography and more detailed analysis (taking into account the complexities of how bees actually fly, such as the constantly changing angle of attack of the wings), modern scientists have a very <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v384/n6610/abs/384626a0.html">clear understanding</a> of the <a href="http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/1/19">dynamics</a> of <a href="http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/1/53">bee flight</a>.<br />
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Yes, scientists and engineers do make mistakes, being human beings after all. (For a rather dramatic example, one need look no further than early 20th century naysayers of rocketry who illustrated their lack of understanding of Newton's Third Law and the Law of Conservation of Linear Momentum by claiming that rockets could not possibly work in space since they would have no atmosphere against which to react.) But the beauty of it all is that science, by its very nature, is a self-correcting mechanism.Glen Mark Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06592122769805439088noreply@blogger.com0