Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v.3.02

Sir Arthur Eddington

Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

Jerry Seinfeld

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

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Hope book sales don't crash...

Michel de Montaigne Quote

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. (source)

Dynamic Systems

What is it about dynamic systems that scare us so? For some reason, we want things to exist in some state of stasis where it is unchanging, but we interact with it all the time. There are many examples:

• Atomic Theory went through many forms, but eventually it was accepted that the world is made up of atoms which can exchange electrons and even protons to result in different matter.
  
• Cosmology went through many stages where it was shattering to claim the Earth is not the center of the Universe. Of course, the Sun was found not to be the center, nor was our Galaxy.
  
• Evolution introduced the idea that perhaps man was not created in the form in which we exist today.

Apparently the human instict is to find the easiest, most simple way to explain something. Some of us are willing to overlook the "errors" in the conclusions in order to keep the formula. Solving those "errors" is what science does. That is where the discoveries lie and often result in changing our static idea of nature into a dynamic one. Once we understand it and see it in motion, all of it starts to make a little more sense.

Blame

Who is to blame? Are users who open an email attachment containing a virus and running the program to install the virus to blame? Is the software that makes all this easy to blame? Is the company that makes the software to blame?

Does it matter?

To some, the kid who takes a gun and points it to his head is at fault when it goes off. To others the manufacturer of the gun takes culpability. Perhaps the gun owner, the gun dealer, or the gun transporter?

All that matters is something bad happened. There is not an easy fix other than a general improvement of understanding and responsibility.

Fortune

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation

Tornado Dream

Had a dream over the weekend that has me wondering. From what I do recall, I was outside with people I know. The sky was overcast and this tornado forms far off in the distance. I ran over to my car to get my camera and saw lots of tornados. I got the camera and started taking pictures.

Well, I feel a stronger pull at my back and see a tornado bearing down on me. I try running perpendicular to it, but it follows me. So I dive to the ground and curl up in a ball on my side. The wind of the tornado pulls at my back and knees as it travels over me.

I sit up and rationalize that somehow being in a circle saved me from the tornado.

That is when I wake up.

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Dreams are so weird.

Science v. Religion

One of the things that has always attracted me to the Baha'i Faith is that science and reliigon should be in agreement. This has always been important to me because I have been an inquisitive child. The reasoning found in science has always helped me understand the world around me better. Those in the world conducting experiments on the Earth, the stars, the animals, and even on minds helps add to our understanding of the world.

However, science is not the be all and end all of understanding. There is so much we don't know and, sounding like Donald Rumsfeld, what we don't know falls into 3 groups:

1. things we think we know but don't know (errors)
2. things we know we don't know (questionables)
3. things we don't know we don't know (truly unknowns)

Embedded in religions are truths we perhaps at the moment do not understand, but in using science perhaps eventually we will? This disagreement between science and religion is a relatively new phenomenon over the life of modern science. Our older religions carry forward understanding of the world while perhaps not literally true, are very relevant. The story of Creation in the Bible at the broader strokes seems in support of astronomical observations of other stellar star systems forming.

1. The Sun ignites; "Let there be light"
2. The planet Earth coalesces; separate the waters (non-solid mass in my interpretation) from the firmament
3. Land is formed
4. Plants are introduced
5. Creatures come from the sea; Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life
6. Man is introduced

On these points, they agree. The confilict arises in the hows this was accomplished and time taken to do it. Genesis does not tell us how this was done, just that it is was done. Genesis also tells us it was done in a week. Perhaps it was done in a week; perhaps God has other concepts of time; perhaps liberties were taken with translations or the storytelling. These are all things about which we can have great debates for centuries into the future.

But let us debate those things rather than trying to create artifical differences.

Franklin P. Adams

"I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way."

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This is so the way I work... Probably that is why I also have this idea that just about everything we can know is interrelated.

Plush Microbes

I would love the shake the had of the person that came up with this product. I have got to get one of each.

1. Ebola
   
2. Ulcer
   
3. Bad Breath
   
4. Bookworm
   

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." (Source)

Henry Stimson

"The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." (Source)

Jack London

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

George Orwell Quote

"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time."

SU Tricks

What is the deal lately with people thinking their email address starts with "www."?

One user, I think, "Odd mistake to make."

Two, I think, "Hope this is not a trend."

Now, on the third, I am starting to wonder...

Gmail

Have one of the coveted (only by the super Geeks) Gmail email accounts. Took the address sneezypb, of course! Anyway, I don't have much mail there and tons of space (1,000 MB), so I should probably transfer some of my email lists to be delivered there.

Flickr

Another place to get my photos:

Flickr