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Comment Re:Qualifications: thinker and visionary (Score 1) 107

Authors, including authors of cartoons, tend to spend most of their time thinking, so they're a fairly good profession for spawning visionaries quite regularly.

IMO he should have spent more time thinking about his cartoon strip, which (back in the day) had one that was funny, interesting, or insightful out of every few hundred.

Comment Re:Disappointingly Linux-centric (Score 3, Funny) 611

Disappointingly computer-centric too. My favorite desktop environment consists of a pencil, a paperweight, and a stapler.

And I can put my head on it for a nap whenever I think that will increase productivity.

(As for the survey, I voted, but I'm not sure it's correct to identify one as my favorite when I haven't actually tried all of them.)

Comment Re:salty seawater vs melt ? (Score 2, Interesting) 298

It's seasonal, and one of the reasons for the increase is increased precipitation (caused by, you guessed it, global warming).
The sea there is actually warmer, and the land ice is shrinking.
In short, this is only interesting if you need facts with superficial interpretations that can "refute" global warming to the uninformed masses.

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

p.s. - I notice in another skepticalscience link that gw deniers have joined evolution deniers in invoking the second law of thermodynamics as "proof that it couldn't happen". As if scientists are ignorant of the 2LoT.

Comment I still like cubing... (Score 2) 100

I never really stopped liking the Rubik's cube. The remarkable thing I've found is the explosion of nxn cubes made by companies other than Rubik's - each with a very different feel (and much better performance).

In my opinion, the Rubik's brand are the worst available - overpriced, and literally painful to use for more than a few twists. Even a cheap $3 knockoff is a vastly superior mechanical design.

Modern speedcubes (non-Rubik's) are a lot more fun: your hands aren't hurting because the cube is painfully stiff or constantly locking up because of a tiny misalignment. The stickers don't peel up from a few minute's use... And they still cost less than the Rubik's brand.

Comment What good is free speech... (Score 1) 1116

What good is freedom of speech if you can't speak your mind without being vilified by everyone?

de Tocquerville even warned that freedom of speech is useless unless the speaker is allowed to voice their view without being persecuted for it.

He even closed "Democracy in America" with: "Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.”

Freedom of speech is useless without the tolerance to allow a person's views to be heard, without persecution. Unless you can voice your view without persecution, "You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you" is literally true - you can voice your view, but you will suffer for it, what good is it?

It's perversion of the spirit of the first amendment to say "You have freedom of speech, but not freedom from its consequence."

I may not like what I consider ignorant drek spouted by Neo-Nazis, KKK, certain Westboro Baptist Church members, etc. I may think they are personally the worst filth humanity has to offer. But I am willing to fight to give them the right to spew their bile and to protect them from those who seek to silence them by whatever means necessary. Anything less amounts to tyranny by the majority.

And that's precisely what is being done here - Eich voiced a view - years ago, and now that what was then the minority is now the majority, he is being punished for it.

The very cornerstone of freedom of speech is being willing to protect those whose views we hate, and the ability to exercise their right without fear of backlash or persecution.

I'm not saying Eich is left starving... far from it. The point is that nobody should feel a threat to their person, livelihood, or property because their views -- however unpopular, ignorant, or wrong -- are expressed.

Comment Re:needs some (Score 1) 470

Really if you want to see pseudoscience in action take a good look at all the assumptions behind cosmology and astronomy. Redshift = distance is an ASSUMPTION and Edwin Hubble himself was the first to point that out. Or start being honest enough to teach students that LOTS of biologists as well as physicists like Sir Hoyle have valid doubts about the theory of evolution, and no they are not creationists. Their main problem with evolution being that it is so often presented as settled established fact when it really has a lot of serious problems that need to be worked out. Just saying that is some kind of heresy in most English-speaking areas. Truth is many scientists would love to replace evolution with a better theory.

Every hypothesis is "an assumption". But some stand up to scrutiny and offer a lot of explanatory value.

As for evolution, what you said isn't heresy - it's a claim that you didn't try to back up.

Comment Re:needs some (Score 2) 470

Roughly one in three American adults believes in telepathy, ghosts, and extrasensory perception," wrote a trio of scientists in a 2012 issue of the Astronomy Education Review.

Yes we must use government institutions to regulate what people believe! If we start young we can change the next generation.

That's one spin you could put on it.

Another choice is "How is a country full of people that believe nonsense going to survive the 21st Century?"

Comment Re:The Religious Right will have your head on a pl (Score 1) 470

There is a great deal of pseudoscience belief on both sides of the isle. The left has irrational beliefs on nuclear power, GMO foods, etc.

You're trying to pee in the punch with a "both sides do it" argument. The not-so-subtle difference is that "the left" doesn't deny that nuclear power and GM foods exist. To paraphrase the famous saying, everyone is entitled to their own policy opinions, but not to their own realities.

But then the Republicans aren't generally as bad as they get a rap for. Their only substantial reality-denying party positions are on evolution and global warming, and both of those are for easily understandable political reasons (the former too keep the dwindling numbers of the faithful faithful, the latter to please their corporate masters).

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