I'm so tired of Chris Anderson

I've altered this whole post because it was kind of an unfocused rant.

My point stands though. Chris Anderson made this daft pronouncement, that the scientific method is "obsolete". In my opinion, Anderson oversimplifies subtle topics (I'm guessing, so he can write popular books about them) and in the process either misses what's important or interesting, or in this case allows himself to stretch his observations beyond their capacity.

And, as long as he's taking advantage of his soap box to go around making blunt pronouncements (that are, I think, way off base), it's worthwhile to make counter-arguments. Or, in this case at least, to point out good ones elsewhere.

This blog doesn't reach more than a couple of you, but I encourage you to read Anderson's misconstrual (as well as the various comments that take him to task), and also the "rebuttals". After all, in an America where science is already being threatened in the schools by creationists, it's probably important to know a bit about how science actually works.

Ars Technica and Kevin Kelley tackle the issue Anderson raises in smarter, more precise terms. I think there's more to be said, and I may do so, perhaps elsewhere.

Jogging

I jogged about a mile a couple of days ago before all my anatomy let me know with crystal clarity that this running crap was not on. I turned around and huffed and puffed back to the house with my tail between my legs.

The next day I felt as though I'd inadvertently put my legs under a steamroller.

Then, yesterday, I ran about two miles. Today I feel fine.

If my math's correct, by the end of next week I should be running 64 miles at a go. I'm looking forward to it. I don't see what all the fuss about marathons is.

In totally unrelated news, I'm fat. I swear, even the air here in Michigan is deep fried.

M. and technology

M. just crushed me at Wii bowling. I'm not even sure what to make of that. He's 83.

On the topic of being 83 and thinking about technology, educating M. about the web and how to access it has been very instructive. It's also been like trying to teach a camel to knit.

I remember my friend Anne telling me about an article she read that talked about how IQ is actually increasing. Apparently, younger generations are taught to do a better job of abstraction - and IQ tests favor that skill set. I'm not sure I buy it, but there's something going on here. An example she repeated is that if you ask someone of my generation to name similarities shared by a dog and a rabbit, we'd tell you about quadrupedia, mammalian attributes, and so on.

Apparently among some older generations, the question is nonsense. You use dogs to kill rabbits, so they're sort of diametrically opposed.

As I say, I'm not sure I take all that as gospel, but I've been trying to explain the Web to M. using first principles. However, he's approaching it very practically. To him, it's not important what programs are open to allow him to see his email. I'm much (much) less interested in getting something done than I am in understanding how it works.

Gorillas, gorillas, report to the mist . . .

Sorry if you arrived here looking for an Ice Cube song.

Following on from my last post, my next interactive is going to be about technologies and gadgets that make you look like a d-bag if you use them. This is a call for suggestions. Anyone got any ideas?

I've got blue tooth headsets outside the car, crackberries, and the Apple Airbook so far. Anyone got other ideas?

I'm a writing machine . . .

This chimp is just one underpaid intern in my brain.

. . . though not like a typewriter. More like a room filled with chimps.

Right now I've got my chimps writing some basic "interactives" for MSNBC.com. The first one is something like "Technologies that signal the end of days". It's supposed to be humorous and perhaps thought-provoking. I'll link to it when and if it goes up.

Unfortunately, I've learned that writing for mass media is hard, you've got to write to all layers of reader. I'm reminded of something my dad once opined, that the best writers in England often worked for the tabloids. They were the only ones who could manage to write about intelligent topics intelligently, and not leave behind the, er, less educated members of the audience. It turns out that writing intelligently for the mass market is tough to do well.

Luckily, the web is a good medium for educating as you go. It's possible to drop in links (like the one I used above) to give readers who want it a little background.

Regent to the good king

I'm hanging out with Good King M. (step dad) these days. I'm not sure if that makes me the regent, but close enough.

It's exciting or amusing work for these reasons:

Cooking
Cooking with/for M. is like being in the kitchen with a lemur. If you're chopping anything he likes, his hand will dart in between knife chops to steal unguarded morsels. He's 83; How can his hands be so swift? I'm the equivalent of a black belt in hand-to-hand combat and I'm powerless to stop him.

Oxygen
M.'s wearing a little oxygen-delivery system. It makes tiny puffs, so he sounds like Darth Vader as interpreted by Hello Kitty.

"I am your stepfather Daniel . . . poof, poof."

Politics
M. is very sweet in apologizing for leaving the world a crappier place than when he found it. I'm not even sure that's accurate, but he's very concerned about this administration's failures vis-a-vis oil, healthcare, education, etc.

Cooking again
Did I mention that the Good King's idea of a great vegetable-side for chicken is honey? Is it sweet and fiberless? Perfecto!

The Interwebs
I'm tutoring M. on how to use the web. He's a good student except he believes using the web will be harder than it is. He's by no means the only person to suffer from this misconception, so no big deal. If you can recommend interesting sites, let me know.

The only downside for me is that when I explain about my successes on the web (like how, for instance I'm probably going to get some freelance work up on MSNBC shortly) he's not suitably impressed. He's never heard of MSNBC, let alone gone there. To be fair, MSNBC isn't that big a deal (sarcasm), and M. knows I went to high school with one of the founders of Google (truth).

Hard to top.

Going home

I'm in bucolic Michigan. I've returned to the old homestead to keep ye old step-dad company while my mom toddles off to England for a while.

I hadn't planned to be unemployed and living at home in my thirties, but here we are. Actually, it'll be a convenient place from which to conduct my job search, I guess. Also, I'm out of Reston for a bit, so that's pretty sweet.

I'm not very connected right now

Comcast and I have had a falling out. It's been a long time coming, and I think we both sort of expected it.

The writing's been on the wall for a while. The first time Comcast came over I knew it was going to be problematic when they tried to install their shit on my computer. I mean, talk about moving too fast. Boundaries, right?

As time went on, when we talked on the phone I felt as though we were speaking different languages. Now, as long as I'm going to be going home to MI for a couple of weeks, I felt like it was time. Besides, I met someone new I'm kind of into - Verizon Fios. Very fast and easy apparently, and I think that's what i'm looking for right now.

Anyway, point is, it may be hard to contact me for a little while. Sorting out the Internet is priority 1 once I'm in Michigan.

So I thought this would be funny

Taking a page from my buddy Mike Elkin's book, I decided it might be funny to translate something from English to Spanish to Swedish to English again and see how it came out. I may have better ideas for source material in the future, but I'm starting with Hamlet's "To be or not to be?" soliloquy.

It probably bears saying that I got the original version from Wikipedia and it probably needs a translation from English to English

Emphasis is all mine . . .

To be vai does not, that is the question:
If 'tis the noble, suffering from Minden
The sling and arrow, outragious Fortune,
Or, to take Armes against the sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: dye, to sleep
Not any more, and a sleep to say that at the end of
The Heart-AKE, and thousands of Naturall Shock
This meat is too heyra? 'TIS a consummation
Deuoutly is wish'd. To Dye to bed,
Sleep, perchance to dream, I is a bargain,
If you would like us to sleep and death, which may become a Dream,
When haue shuffel'd remove this mortal Coile,
Must Giu vs. Paws. The so-respect
Calamity, that the so-long life:
To be Beare whips and scoria time,
The Evil oppressors, Poore mans contumely,
Changing of the Guard and dispriz'd Loue, the delay in Lawes,
The Spanish: hibris, hybris office (I have just no idea about this), and the Spurn
, That the patients have to be made with vnworthy,
When itself be able to make his quietus
When the bare bodkin? What are these Fardles Beare
In order to grunt and sweat-vnder tired of life,
However, that fear is something after death,
The vndiscouered Countrey, which Borne
Not Traueller return, Puzels will,
And it is facing a Beare Illes, we haue,
Then flye others who do not know.
Thus conscience makes cowards in front of everyone,
And, therefore, that HEW Natiue resolution
Is Sicklied o're, pale cast of thought,
And Enterprize bone marrow, and a great moment,
In this sense, his Currants turn away,
And loose the name of action.

Enjoy

George Orwell and sock puppets

In case you don't watch boingboing.net like I do, this appealed to my geeky sense of the absurd.

Sock puppets deconstructing George Orwell's 1984.

Ugh - an update

Okay, I'm fully back from Kenya.

My body re-entered the country about three weeks ago, but my mind's been taking its sweet time to catch up. I finally feel like I'm back and once again focused on finding a stinking job.

On that front, there have been a couple of nibbles, but nothing concrete yet.

In the meantime, I'm happy to report that I'm making ends meet via dividends from a real-estate investment and some freelance coding. This month I've made a couple of thousand dollars already, so that might bide me for a while. Helen's also working to help me out with writing stuff at MSNBC, but writing isn't something that's thick on my resume, so it's by no means a sure thing. Also, I think that given how quickly I write and the pay rate for coding, coding is much more lucrative.

However, as I predicted with online community, more and more people are lumping community and content together. That means I'd like to get more writing/editing on my resume. It's stuff I've done before, but always interstitially, never as a proper job.