Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Wikipedia Brown
My thoughts on Wikis are summed up nicely in this short story that took me back to my favorite detective of all time-Encyclopedia Brown. Meet Wikipedia Brown Found via Volokh Conspiracy.
Monday, January 29, 2007
this time, moving domain registrars
A year or two ago, I moved all my domains to the registrar GoDaddy, the only registrar with a clause in their terms of service that allows them to yank domains if they don’t like what the domain is used for. I’ve always been bothered by that and a few days ago, there was an incident involving the author of one of the must-have security tools. Basically, he maintains a mirror of the “full disclosure” security mailing list; one of the archived emails contained a list of some 40.000 phished MySpace accounts. Instead of forcing these users to change their passwords to work on educating their user base, they approached GoDaddy, where his domain was hosted, and they cancelled his domain with one minute warning. GoDaddy’s legal counsel issued a statement that a) any warning at all was generous of them and b) he had an hour’s notice. The facts appear to contradict counsel’s statement and counsel backed down admitting that she didn’t know the facts when she issued the statement.
All of this is just a bit too much. What GoDaddy did might have been legal, but it sure wasn’t right and legal counsel issuing statements that rely on made-up facts is not acceptable. I’ve moved the first batch of my domains to the registrar Les uses. You shouldn’t notice anything about these transfers.
Having said that, a nice feature of the new registrar is that they offer private registrations for free (right now) and they offer them at a much lower price than GoDaddy, so I’m coming out ahead. Owing to a cloak-and-dagger operation, it’s not possible to have private registrations with .us domains and I’m considering to move fallacio.us to a different domain that I’ve secured a while ago. We’ll see.
Update below the fold…
Click to read more...
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Darwin’s Rottweiler
It was kind of weird sitting in church today and listening to a commentary on a Richard Dawkins book.
It was one of those homilies that I found kind of interesting, since I like Dawkins’ writing (although I haven’t read this particular book).
Listening to the homily made me wonder how I would have reacted to it when I first started going back to church a few years ago, at a point in my life where I wasn’t really sure if I believed in God.
And I think I probably would have come back the next week. Although the priest made it clear that he didn’t agree with the central themes of the book, he didn’t say anything derogatory about the author.
I guess I don’t really have anything to say here ... except that maybe I’ll pick up the book and read it for myself.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
I Call Bullshit
Nothing Bush says should ever preempt Denny Krane! Nothing.
what’s the world coming to?
One of my favorite eateries burned down this night. Right across the street, three laptops were stolen from a purveyor of computer stuff. Looking at the timing, the thieves must have done their stuff just as the firefighters were wrapping things up.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Die Wissenschaft hat festgestellt…
From the duh department:
Why Do Good? Brain Study Offers Clues
People may not perform selfless acts just for an emotional reward, a new brain study suggests.
I have always assumed that this is having it backwards. We are genetically predisposed towards altruism and if it makes you feel good, it’s like giving a seal a fish treat for a trick well done.
Instead, they may do good because they’re acutely tuned into the needs and actions of others.
Scientists say a piece of the brain linked to perceiving others’ intentions shows more activity in unselfish vs. selfish types.
Now we’re talking mechanism…
“Perhaps altruism did not grow out of a warm-glow feeling of doing good for others, but out of the simple recognition that that thing over there is a person that has intentions and goals. And therefore, I might want to treat them like I might want them to treat myself,” explained study author Scott Huettel, an associate professor of psychology at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C.
Oh my. I’m siding with Dawkin’s selfish gene. On average and in the long term, altruism tends to outperform selfishness as a survival strategy for genes. Again, the warm-glow feeling is just a doggy treat.
For decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have puzzled over the tendency of humans to engage in altruistic acts—defined by Huettel’s group as acts “that intentionally benefit another organism, incur no direct personal benefit, and sometimes bear a personal cost.”
Oddly enough, it seems to be more of an open and shut case for biologists.
Experts note that altruism doesn’t seem to provide individuals with any survival edge, so how and why did it evolve?
Oh my, oh my. Evolution is about reproductive success, not individual survival. Read your Dawkins…
The article goes on for quite a bit more, but I tuned out at about this point. It’s interesting, though. In terms of math, evolution compares to an existential proof - it tells you that something is so, but doesn’t give you a specific answer. As opposed to a constructive proof, telling you that not only there is a solution, but here it is. Likewise, the twisted path of evolutionary design are always fascinating.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
rock, paper, scissors
Law.com: Judge May Let Playground Rules Settle Lawyers’ Squabble
Taking a page from a Florida judge’s playbook, an Atlanta federal judge told squabbling lawyers they might need to resolve future petty differences with a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors.”
U.S. District Senior Judge Marvin H. Shoob warned attorneys for parties in a consumer debt collection case that before asking him to settle any more disputes, the lawyers should consult a 2006 order by U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell in a Florida case.
Presnell settled an argument between opposing counsel about the location of scheduled depositions by fashioning “a new form of alternative dispute resolution. ... [C]ounsel shall engage in one (1) game of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors.’”
That’s what happens when you annoy the judge. I’m not familiar with the territory, but I strongly suspect judges hate having their time wasted.
for once, I agree with a Catholic diocese
Expatica: Diocese urges contract for marriage to Muslims
The Catholic Diocese of Hildesheim in northern Germany is advising Catholic women who marry Muslim men to draw up a notarized marriage contract.
The president of the Hildesheim diocesan council, Margaretha Meyer, told dpa that most women who marry Muslims are uninformed about possible problems that can develop because of different legal systems in Islamic countries
“The experience is that the situation for women is different, if they have a contract,” Meyer said.
Implicit here is that the husband is either a national of an Islamic country or has family ties there, which probably accounts for the vast majority of Islamic men in Germany.
The diocese has prepared guidelines for new marriage partners in light of the growing number of mixed-religion marriages.
The role of a woman in Islam and the divorce laws are much different than Germany’s, Meyer said.
“Women who live in Germany have little understanding of the differences because equality is taken for granted here,” she said.
No kidding. Not all Muslim fit the Taliban mold and not all Islamic countries are the same, but you’d have a hard time convincing me that women fare better in Islamic countries than they do in the West. Of course, the West also has a long way to go.
In addition, the contract should specify a permanent marriage relationship, taking into consideration that under Shia law, a marriage could be limited to a certain time period.
How’s that for traditional family values? I always thought these limited marriage laws were designed to give prostitution a legal veneer and perhaps allow for coerced sex, but perhaps I’m too cynical.
The loyalty of Muslims to Islam often motivates their non-Muslim partners to more intensely study the Christian Bible and the message of Christ, Meyer said.
What about studying atheism and make sure any children are firmly grounded in reality? 
Friday, January 19, 2007
forget about that ice storm in Texas
Expatica: Storm ravages Germany, Europe, kills 41 people
At least 41 people were killed and transport ground to a halt across Northern Europe Thursday night and Friday morning in one of the worst storms to hit the continent in the last 20 years.
Winds of 200 kilometres-per-hour were reported in some regions
Ouch.
here’s another “gem”
I don’t drive by many involuntarily funny religious texts these days, but I recently stumbled over this:
Is atheism against the law? (i.e. the natural laws)
It’s not worth my time taking this text apart, but here’s something that greatly amused me:
The skeptic asks, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” God is the uncreated creator of the universe, so the question, “Who created God?” is illogical. A better question would be, “If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn’t God need a cause? And if God doesn’t need a cause, why should the universe need a cause?” Everything which has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning; therefore, the universe has a cause. It is important to stress the words “which has a beginning”. The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning. God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so he does not need a cause.
Emphasis added.
So let me get this straight. If the universe is the result of naturalistic processes, something I am required to assume in my own worldview, these processes ultimately do not need a cause.
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