I recently came across this Info-Graphic that compares all 50 states to each other in various areas. As you can see, the degree of ‘religiousness’ is on the left, while the various other indicators are beside it.
Just musing here, but i find it interesting that average intelligence and happiness are inversely correlated with religion, but crime rate and divorce rate are direct correlations. Probably a coincidence is the fact that intelligence is also inversely correlated with conservatism, but that is probably just my liberal bias speaking.
Now, correlation does not always imply causation, but if your population is generally more likely to accept things on faith (that is to say, in the absence of empirical evidence), I could have probably predicted most of that. However, the fact that the entire population was equally generous, but the most religious states had more impoverished people was surprising.
I’d hate to draw the conclusion that a strongly religious society will be worse off, but when I look in the world, I have a hard time refuting that conclusion. The Scandinavian countries consistently rank on the top of the Human Development Index, and they have some pretty low religiosity, especially when compared to, I don’t know, Saudi Arabia. Some studies also indicate that a higher self-described religiosity may not be great for your mental health.Whatever. Cigarettes are also mainstream, and they kill you, too, not to mention Jersey Shore.
The left-wing blog Daily Kos has released a new poll that asks self-identified Republicans from all through the United States just what they believe. The results show the base has a very tenuous grasp of reality, to be generous. In fact, if these numbers are right, they could have quite dire consequences indeed. I’ll be going through the numbers in a little bit.
Let’s play a little game, assuming for the moment that this poll was conducted scientifically (and there are many indications that this is the case) and that it is indeed representative of the de facto Republican base. How many Americans would these abstract numbers actually represent, and what proportion of America at large would this be?
Was Barack Obama born in the United States? 36% say no, which is 20 million Republicans, and 51 million Americans at large.
Is Sarah Palin more qualified to be President than Barack Obama? 53% say yes, which is 30 million people, and 76 million Americans at large
Should same sex couples be allowed to marry? 77% say no, 44 million Repubs, and 110 million Americans.
Should gay people be allowed to teach in public school? 73% disagree, 41 million Repubs and 105 million Americans.
Should public school students get taught the Genesis story as the explination for the creation of the world? 77% agree
Is the pill abortion, and is abortion murder? 34%, and 76% respectively. So this means that about 37 million Americans believe that the pill is muder.
Will you suffer for eternity if you don’t believe in Jesus? 67% think so, which is 38 million Republicans, and 96 million Americans at large.
I have many friends who like to marginalize the Republicans, and undercut the importance that the fundamentalists have within their ranks. They love to say how people like this do not represent the majority viewpoint of America, and to a certain extent, they are right. But when you factor in the obstructionist tactics of the Repubs in both houses and combine that with the stifling propaganda from the Faux News Network, you start to see the problems that we are dealing with. This minority viewpoint claims themselves as the moral majoirty, and make no mistake, they are out to win by any means nessisary. This included dismantling the wall of seperation of church and state (created by founding father Thomas Jefferson) but thinking their secular republic is a christian nation by design from these founding fathers. They’ll even fully indoctrinate their kids to achieve these ends.
Don’t believe me? These people are real, and they’re really out there to get your kids.
Ok, for this game, I used the results from the 2008 election as a general representation, which CNN reports as 65,182,692 for Obama, and 57,212,032, for a total of 122,394,724 voters. There are 308,623,369 people in the states, and though I know it’s not statistically valid to do so, (and I’m a blogger, not a statistician, so feck off),but I scaled these results up for the General Population as well, just to see what proportion of Americans would believe it in numbers. I know the general population includes prisoners and children, but I’d be willing to bet that, on average, the children’s beliefs reflect those of their parents more often than not.
As some of you may have heard, the Obama administration has recently come out with the new NASA budget, and there have been sweeping changes within the administration. Succinctly, they get about 2.5 billion bucks more, but they also have to axe their next generation of space vehicle (the Constellation class).
I really don’t think this is a bad thing, and could actually lead to a whole new way of looking at space travel.
For the last 50 years, the model that any developed nation has taken towards space travel has been the same as NASA: From conceptual design to launch, every aspect of the process has ultimate control from the top-down., I’m a socialist, having a big government doesn’t really bother me, but the nature of this approach has some natural limitations. For one thing, NASA is structurally designed to employ lots of skilled technicians, contractors and scientists, dispersed throughout the U.S. ; so by its very nature it must be a bureaucracy. To design one rocket (like, say the constellation), the plans and execution takes place under different teams in different places and different times, all under local political regulations. To say this is an expensive system is one thing, but bureaucracies are big, expensive, and employ lots of people. For this reason, Phil Plait (over at the bad astronomy blog) thinks that the congressmen (primarily from the south, I might add) will probably protest the new budget due to the effect it will have to these big, high value bureaucracies.
However, NASA has seen the writing on the wall, and realize that bleeding their money into a terribly inefficient design process is not the best use of their considerable budget. To that end, the administration has earmarked billions of their budget specifically to encourage innovation into space travel. With groups like Branson and his SpaceShipOne, or SpaceX’s Falcon 9, who are already creating rockets that do what the space shuttle does, for a tiny fraction of the Space Shuttle’s operating cost and no overhead, stimulating this new economy can only be a good thing for society.
In essence, this new budget will be used to seed a bus service into low-earth orbit, with prices controlled by the market. By eliminating this huge boondoggle, NASA is free to do what it does best: Science. Launching into all the ways that NASA has increased scientific understanding is a waste of space, but it is not an exaggeration to say that without NASA, our knowledge of our place in the universe would be laughably small.
As for the effect this will have on manned space travel; its debatable. Immediately, by scrapping the constellation class, NASA has seemingly stranded themselves on the earth for the next while. I don’t see this as a bad thing in the least, for two reasons. First off, the private market is already ramping up its R&D to get people to the moon in under ten years, and NASA will be a primary user of this private service, both to shuttle their future astronauts (at a tiny, tiny fraction of the price that the would have if they had done it themselves) and to put equipment on the moon, and possibly beyond.
Secondly, and like it or not, our technology isn’t yet at the point where manned space exploration is feasible. Don’t get me wrong, I love manned space travel (hear me wax poetic on that subject HERE), but the fact is, we can’t yet safely go beyond earth’s cozy EM shield and stores of delicious water yet. In the future, I have no doubt at all that we will permanently establish ourselves on the moon, Mars, and beyond; but for now, I think we need to develop our infrastructure. While we’re waiting for the private sector to clean up our bureaucratic mess, we can still use non-manned exploration to the benefit of humanity.
We’ve already investigated other bodies in our atmosphere with a hydrological cycle of methane, with lakes and rivers and volcanoes of water, heard the music of Saturn’s Aurora Borealis, discovered water bursting forth from moons, seeding rings seen millions of kilometers away that inspire generations of astronomers, and that was all with one robotic mission. We landed two robot rovers on our neighbour that worked 12 times longer than we designed for, and one of them is still going, all for 400 million dollars total. When you factor in all the R&D for the space shuttle, a single launch of that old beastie costs 1.3 billion dollars. We’ve landed on asteroids, smashed into them, and even bombed the moon, and gained huge amounts of understanding as a result. If you do any kind of cost-benefit analysis, robot missions will win, hands down all the time. In the intervening time, let’s let the private sector fill out the boring transportation problems, and stimulate the economy by doing so.
I see great things in the near future for NASA, from finding earth-like planets orbiting other stars, replacing the aging hubble with an even more awesome telescope, and even possibly finding life within our own solar system. This budget is a great step in that direction.
Barack Obama has the biggest balls in North America, really.
The man, in the midst of crisis on all sides, waltzes into the caucus of the sitting house Republicans and fields questions from all sides, unscripted, for a full 90 minutes. Nobody with half a brain can possibly claim that Obama ignores Republican concerns, as his full responses are right there. This didn’t stop the propaganda fiends from fox literally cutting away from the Republican’s front lines so that they could bash him for being so damn eloquent. The republicans, after having every single one of their thrown talking points bounce harmlessly off of Super-Obama, are now considering the televised debate a mistake.
You can’t fight with a bogey-man when it is plain and obvious that the bogey-man is a fiction of your own creation. Barack Obama is inconsiderate enough to stand up to the worst criticism of his opponents, and he destroys them all while gaining political cred.
You contrast this with the way that King Harper is facing his worst criticisms, by, you know, NUKING DEMOCRACY, and the difference between power-obsessed, kitten-abusing dictator and a real leader becomes all the clearer. You shame your riding, you shame your party, you shame our country, and you shame democracy itself by stifling debate with your proroguing, Mr Harper. Take a cue from someone with an ounce of courage and honor and face your criticisms, even if you don’t like what you will hear, or you will go down in history as a cowardly and maniacally egotistical failure.
Today’s the day where our Parliament would have gone to work after the winter break. That is, until the resident Prime Ministerial five-year-old decided to take his ball and go home. To the credit of both the Liberals and NDP, their MPs are on the hill proposing legislation to limit the dictator Prime Minster’s power to lock the doors. I applaud the effort, especially after the nation-wide grassroots protests, so it seems like at least some of our democratically elected members respect the people that give them their mandates. Harper, however couldn’t care less about being accountable to the Canadian people.
On top of torture allegations, and the economy, or even senatorial reform, we have had the disaster in Haiti. Jack Layton (@jacklayton on twitter) would have had experts to advise our Government on how Canadians could contribute to their long-term development. I’m a soon-to-be Civil Engineer, this stuff is my bread and butter, and timing is of the essence, especially when we are dealing with a problem that is as massive in scope as this one is. Instead, we are left with a deafening silence.
It is too bad that prorogation isn’t something that our soldiers had in their arsenal. When faced with the order to head out on a foot patrol in the Panjwai district of southern Afghanistan, to risk their lives to bring democracy to that place, wouldn’t it be nice if they could simply prorogue and roll over and go back to sleep? Soldiers don’t get that luxury. That is afforded only to the people who ultimately order them to walk down those dangerous dusty roads in the first place.
Dear Stephen Harper and the Conservatives: I miss my democratically elected parliament, even with you and your odious cronies in charge. Please stop this shameful, childish display and do the f*cking job we’re paying you for.
If you’ve ever been on the campus of your typical university, you’ve seen the followers in legion. The services provided by this monolithic organization, ruled with an iron fist from a warmer country thousands of kilometers away by a single, reclusive man with an iconic wardrobe, cost the devoted untold millions year upon year. Their presence within the city is unmistakable, defining entire city blocks with their imposing architecture. Most insidiously, they have hijacked their adherent’s minds, worming the brand into their very identities.
Juuust kidding.
I am, of course, referring to Apple, the world’s favorite soulless corporation. After posting their greatest profits ever in the middle of a recession, while giving us innovations like the iPhone and iPod. Their impact to most industries that they come across is undeniable; they revolutionized the online music industry and invented new streams of revenue (like the app market), while simultaneously injecting the spark of competition among rivals in the world.
So why, then, do I have an ax to grind with this super corporation? For me, it comes down to the fact that Apple does not play well with others. Apple’s trademark is the completeness of the computing experience that ‘just works’. In other words, Apple controls every aspect of the end-user experience, from case to browser. It’s the extreme proprietary nature of this approach that irks me.
Take the iPod, for example, arguably one of their biggest sucessess. Instead of taking .mp3 files (the industry standard), Apple forces you to use their software to convert your files into something that mac will use, which also conveniently scrambles the files so that it is virtually impossible to find and sort your files without iTunes. They then make it so you can’t even take your own music off of the iPod onto another computer, effectively locking your stuff onto what is fundamentally a flash drive that plays music. Woe be to you if you wish to use your flash drive for things that flash drives do (like store files), because that isn’t allowed.
When users want to expand the functionality of their own devices (you know, the definition of invention or innovation) Apple responds by killing the device. We saw this when apple released a mandatory software update that bricked thousands of iPhones, all of which were paid for by their users. You may be saying at this point “Ah, but those users broke the warranties that came with their devices”, but that’s my point; Apple doesn’t respect their customer’s right to autonomous choices. Yeah, it’s legal, but I get the feeling that Apple is attempting to make users conform to what THEY think a user should be.
Another big problem I have with Apple is their exploitation of early adopters combined with their intentional planned obsolescence. Take the hype surrounding the first generation of iPhones. Apple fanboys went fucking CRAZY over this device, some lining up for days just to be the first to possess this gift from their prophet. Each and every one of them sank 600 bucks and a 3 year contract, and proceeded to spread the gospel of apple to the ends of the blogosphere. Six months later, Apple comes around and releases a better version that makes the first one look like shit (faster, GPS enabled, better battery life, etc), which forces these trendsters to fork over yet more money just to keep up. At the same time, apple punishes people ‘jailbreaking’ (telling phrase right there, isn’t it?) their now-obsolete phones by making their entire investment completely worthless.
I bet the same thing will happen with the new iPad, or as I prefer, the iTampon. We all know this is just the first in a whole new line of products in which Apple will be utterly untouchable. I have no doubts that the industry will respond with content specifically generated for the iTampon, but in six months to a year, those people who drop the cheap (!?) $500 on this first gen will get screwed over when the gods release one with SD/Video/Multiapp support/battery life/whatever-else-you-don’t-like-about-the-iTampon. You can be sure that Apple won’t allow any user tweaks to the interface, and every app written for it will have to be meticulously vetted by Apple.
If the picture I am painting of Apple makes it look like an egotistical, self-obsessed, power-hungry dictatorship, it’s because that’s exactly what they are. Apple wants to control every aspect of your experience (allegedly with your interest in mind) but make you feel like you are cool, trendy and cutting edge. Fine, I won’t argue that Apple products are cool, trendy and cutting edge, but I guess I just value my freedom more than you do.
It should therefore come as no surprise that I advocate open-source alternatives to your computocracy. I use and advocate linux, which gives you a comparable end-user experience for free. Oh, and the complete functionality and look of the latest OS for mac can be reproduced (for free) on Linux. Look what I did with a bit of time without paying a cent:
(check the other desktops I made in my spare time by clicking through)
I know I come off as a snobby, nerdy elitist, but I look at the actual products that you get for the amount of money that you spend, and I am pretty underwhelmed. The whole idea of paying hundreds of dollars for something that you can literally get for free is pretty absurd, and even when you pay the huge prices, you are treated by a delinquent or a child. Mac knows better than you, and if you think differently, well, tough.
I’m not saying Linux could or should replace any of the mainstream OS’s, because frankly, most people wouldn’t be able to use Linux. However, I reject the idea that the we should just accept Apple’s modus operandi as-is, because there are less evil ways of satisfying the computing needs.
Well, the democrats have done it. They found a way to put someone into one of the most liberal states in the union that was utterly unelectable. The senate seat, held for a half century by Ted Kennedy (the famously dependable liberal vote), and now probably the neutered healthcare bill as well, have fallen to THIS GUY:
Still think there's a benevolent deity?
No, Seriously. Martha Coakly made so many concurrent ‘gaffes‘ including identifying a celebrated Red Socks pitcher as a Yankee’s fan, invoking 9/11 to smear her opponent, oh, and misspelling the State’s name on her OFFICIAL WEBSITE. OBAMA, or, in the style of ancient Hebrew, BM, even parachuted himself into the state, (not literally, although that would have been awesome) to campaign, effectively smearing the shit of this horror all over the national party.
Now the senate, and most particularly Ted Kennedy’s Health Care Bill (you know, his legacy project that he wanted to define his late career by), is probably going to fail, because the democrats are chronically addicted to ‘bi-partisanship’, despite the lack of cooperation from the other half of the house. Or maybe BM is addicted to dithering and fail on a scale only comparable with the late career of Paul Martin.
This tragedy is worthy of the Greeks, but even Oedepus kept it in the family. This is seriously sadistic shit.
I love Google, I’ll say that unhesitatingly and unambiguously. Without Google, I would have no Reader in which to read the 100s of blogs that I regularly follow, no Gmail to consolidate my half dozen regularly utilized email accounts, no picassa to host my thousands of travel photos, no programs to bring the entire world and sky into my very own home, or the translation software that makes my slow (but sure) learning of french possible. I would be permanently lost without Google maps, and their transit-friendly software has saved me hundreds of dollars that would have been otherwise spent on cabs. Not to mention the ubiquity and utility of its search function, which is synonymous with web searching.
Their “20%” time has brought us untold web innovations, all in the quest of giving their employees unparalleled freedom with their time. Their business benefits are the best in any industry, and if there was a spot for a civil engineer at Google, I’d fight tooth and nail for the opportunity . Hell, their corporate manifesto is even elegant: “Don’t be Evil”. They’ve single-handedly revolutionized the internet, and are the forbearers of the next generation of the web (namely, Google Wave). Most importantly, unlike most evil corporations, they are run by harmless, friendly and approachable nerds (Bill Gates being a very, very harmful nerd).
Some have accused Google of selling out to do buisness with China, which was true, to a certain extent. However, Google has begun to revise their policy on that Human-Rights ignoring cash cow, as the result of attacks targeted at Chinese free-speech advocates through the Google infrastructure. The company can no longer ignore its implicit role in the censorship of information through its all-reaching internet presence, and has decided to discontinue censoring its web results in China. Like its reaction to the utility and freedom of Twitter, they will most likely have to shut down Google in China or reform, and given Google’s importance in the modern day and age, this could be as harmful as destroying one’s factories or roadways. I welcome this step, because Google has stood up for freedom of information.
I believe in freedom of information. Ideas should have the ability to stand on their own, and there shouldn’t be a need to profit from this. I use Linux for this reason, because the Open-Source movement embraces these ideals. Google has made money (shit tons, to be sure) by making information (in this case, advertisements) available to people that would potentially be interested in it. It makes the most popular websites (and if you Google ”Prose Encounters” , see what you get ) come to the top, and its guiding principle is “Don’t Be Evil”. The corporate world has much to learn: instead of closing down avenues by restricting people to proprietary stuff, Google encourages collaboration, sharing, and the transfer of knowledge.
And I, for one, Welcome our New Nerd Overlords. Google is the future, and we are in the hands of benevolent, joyful nerds from California.
… and by Boyle’s law becomes even less credible. For those of you who haven’t heard, Sarah Palin has become a Fox News Pundit. When it became clear to the majority of Americans that Sarah Palin was clearly insane and obviously unfit to lead the country, she pulled a maverick move and dropped out of politics. She had a ghost-written book come out, and spent the last couple of months pissing off everybody by just being herself.
Now, the Propaganda Wing of the Republican Party (Fair and Balanced, indeed) has decided to take her on as a pundit. She’ll have that soap box, ala Glenn Beck to preach to the ignorant, populist . All I can hope for is that this precludes her from running for the 2012 ticket, but I know that this Maverick will find a way to disappoint me.
This, here on that little pixel in the middle, was the exact spot where humanity made its first steps on a body other than on our cradle of life. That’s the landing site of Apollo 11, which some of you may remember landed on the moon (July 20th, 1969) and Neil Armstrong made his one small step. If we do not manage to off ourselves through negligence or stupidity, we will someday see this little patch of our natural satellite as a clear spot dividing the past of humanity from its still more glorious future.
Despite the nationalism that funded this moonshot, despite the implicit competition with the Ruskies and the ulterior motives, the fact is, at that spot, we first transcended our earthly confines, and were able to look up at our own home from afar. Neil Armstrong and the Apollo missions came in peace for all mankind, leaving these small traces of all of us on our lonely companion for all of history.
Will we go back to the moon any time soon? Eventually, certainly, but I doubt that we have the money or reasons to do so now. Non-manned missions get you more bang for your buck (costing fractions of single space-launches), and they do much more science for us. Look at the Cassini Mission, returning gorgeous images of Saturn for 80 million a year, and that could be running until at least 2017. Spirit and Opportunity were set to go on for 90 days, but they are both well past their 1000th day. This would be impossible with manned missions, and yet they continue to truck faithfully across the martian plains.
In the long run, these first steps will be seen as laughably small and conservative. Who knows, given the right technology, trips to the Jovian moons could be as commonplace as trips to foreign continents are now. Probably it will not be for 100s of years, but in any case, the precedent has been set. Humanity has been beyond its doorstep, but only just. Consider the following, and be truly humbled at the true smallness of our steps:
We’ve gone far, in local terms. But the stars are calling us, friends, and we still have a very long way to go before we can answer.
Juuust kidding.
) come to the top, and its guiding principle is “Don’t Be Evil”. The corporate world has much to learn: instead of closing down avenues by restricting people to proprietary stuff, Google encourages collaboration, sharing, and the transfer of knowledge.
