Saturday, October 20, 2007

Blogs are dead

Well, maybe not dead, but why bother posting posting items of interest only to my friends.

I'm doing my stream of consciousness stuff over on facebook now

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Kiva.org microfinancing for the PayPal masses

Finally! There is a way to contribute to microfinancing organisations: have a look at Kiva

It's a little disappointing that you don't get interest payments on the money. Effectively the opportunity cost of your capital is a charitable donation.

Friday, July 27, 2007

American Politics is wonderful

American politicians have to be the most professional in the world.

YouTube hosted the Democratic presidential candidate debates.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Emily Oster: AIDS in Africa

The latest TED talk is an excellent one from economist Emily Oster: What do we really know about the spread of AIDS?

Many of the same ideas are expressed in this Equire article

Thursday, May 17, 2007

The Atheist Tabernacle Choir

I've been trying to track down a copy of this for ages. It's impossible to buy.

Spitting Image sings The Atheist Tabernacle Choir
"If you don't believe in God, then clap your hands!"

Updated link to point to youtube rather than a dead-link MP3.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Book Review: Why We Love

In Why we Love Helen Fisher looks at love from an evolutionary perspective. It's all about reproduction. Helen breaks this down further into three distinct types of love that are driven by different hormones.

Testosterone causes lust. We need to want to have sex in order to reproduce.

Romantic love is associated with dopamine and, interesting, low serotonin levels. Dopamine makes you happy. Whilst low serotonin can be associated with depression, it is also associated with obsessive compulsive disorder and this may explain why people in love focus on their loved one and nothing else. This feeling can last months or years.

Attachment on the other hand comes from the hormones vasopressin and oxytocin. These are responsible for the contentment we feel from long-term relationships and also the rush of love mothers feel for their newborn children.

These chemicals and feelings interact in interesting ways. Lust can lead to love and vice-versa.

Why we Love gives a biological basis for the complexities of love and love relationships. Fisher's model explains how someone could be in a committed relationship, whilst in love with someone else and at the same time have sexual fantasies about a third person.


Helen Fisher also gave a great talk on the topic at TED.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Why Software Sucks...and What You Can Do About It

I finished David Platt's Why Software Sucks...and What You Can Do About It. Software does indeed suck, but this book doesn't do a great deal to help solve the problem.

The main thesis of the book is that software developers are not their users and look at interface design from a completely different perspective. "You are not your user!" Platt implores repeatedly.

Unfortunately for Platt he, as authour, is not the reader of his book. The book fails because Platt seems to be confused about whom he is writing for.

On the one hand, for software developers, Platt provides little guidance for better design. "Think about what your users want" and "choose sensible defaults" seems to sum it up.

Platt could defend himself by saying that this book is targeted at end users. He fails as well though. He repeatedly says that users aren't interested in the software, they just want to get their task done. By his analogy: people aren't interested in drills, they want to put holes in things. Why would he think that a book on "Why drills suck" would be of interest?

Ultimately, I think that Platt's book is a trojan horse designed to lure software users into reading it. In between the early chapters on "why software sucks" and the final chapter of "what you can do about it" he dumps a lot of computer nerd information on to his users. Things "ever user should know" about security, privacy, geek culture and Microsoft. For the computer professional this information is too basic. For the computer user it's too boring. "Know your user/book reader" indeed.

Oh, and the final chapter that tells the end user what they can do about bad software? Well you can complain! Despite giving examples of how hard it is to find feedback forms on the web, this is what Platt encourages users to do. Then, despite a chapter explaining why Microsoft rules the software world, he advises people to look at (admittedly inferior) alternatives. Why would users care?

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Religion continued

Another great religious themed TED talk is Julia Sweeney: "Letting Go of God". She gives an amusing account of a meeting with Mormon evangelists saying how strange they come across when hearing them for the first time. She compares this with how strange Christian beliefs would be if you weren't familiar with them.

This another instance Betrand Russell's teapot argument:
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Further thoughts on religion

In the spirit of "trying to look at both sides of the argument" I watched the TED talk by Rev. Tom Honey

In the context of the Asian tsunami, he is wrestling with the old chestnut "If there is a God, why does he let such terrible things happen?"

For the first three quarters of the talk, he approaches this question from a religious perspective. I don't find the thought process a particularly useful one. To me the the question "How could God let then tsunami happen?" doesn't arise if we assume there is no God.

The final section of his talk is "What if God is in things?" Here he turns away from the typical notion of a Judeo-Christian God. He asks whether instead of personifying God as an autonomous "agent," we cant' see God as "essential benevolence in the universe". He then suggests we could see God as "compassion" or the "magnificence of the natural world"

"Is God just another name for the universe?" he asks. This is similar to the Einsteinian view of his own religion as an "unbounded admiration for the structure of the world."

In answer to his question, Honey concludes: "In the end the only thing I could say for sure was 'I don't know' and that might be the most profoundly religious statement of all"

To me this is a particularly non-useful God. Can't we better go from a sense of wonder at the universe to a curiosity to discover it's secrets? Religion tells us not to question, science makes questioning an imperative. Surely science is more satisfactory response to the mysteries of the world.

Further, how can we go from such a notion of God and religion to a system for morality? It is hard to go from the fundamental physical constants of the universe to The Ten Commandments. Surely we can derive a more solid moral basis than simply taking stuff written in ancient books.

The God Delusion

One of the most interesting books I've read this year is Richard Dawkins' wildly popular The God Delusion.

If you want a quick sampler before plunging in to it's 400-odd pages there are some video versions. Dawkins' gave a TED talk "An atheist's call to arms" can be watched online. His 2-part TV movie "The Root of All Evil?" is also well worth watching (despite the somewhat overstated title).

Dawkins presents, what is to me, convincing arguments as to why God does not exist and why arguments for the existence of God do not hold up to serious scrutiny. He also gives a plausible theory of the roots of religion from the perspective of meme theory.

He then gives his arguments as to why religion is a harmful influence in our world: subversion of science, intolerance, wars and so on. Dawkins provides this as one of the central theses of his book: that religion should not be respected for it's own sake:
"As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."

He thus argues that "moderate" faith, and respect for "moderate" faith, facilitates extremism and terrorism. I put "moderate" in quotes because Dawkins sees no way to differential between "moderate" and "extremist" religion. This to me is a flaw in his line of thinking. It is simple to define "harmful" or "extremist" religion as any religion that defies The Golden Rule. Should I care about someone's private beliefs if they don't impact upon me?

Another distinction that Dawkins fails to made is between spirituality and religious dogma. I have friends who have spiritual beliefs but don't follow the teachings of any church. Can I really argue that their beliefs are harmful to me or society?

While I think the world would be better off without religion, I'm not convinced by Dawkins' call to arms against all religion. This strikes me as a divisive and will just polarise people.

Finally, Dawkins doesn't address the point that religious people, on the whole, are happier than non-religious people. He does mention in passing a quote from George Bernard Shaw:
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
Amusing but not convincing.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

TED

I accidentally came across TED today - a video site "Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers"

Some highlights
Steven Levitt wrote Freakonomics; I read this one earlier this year and will write about it in another post.

Helen Fisher wrote Why we Love which is on my reading list.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Babel

I watched Babel today. It's a beautifully made film with strong performances from the entire cast. The story is intricately weaved in the style of crash.

I appreciate the film not labeling any of the characters as good or evil. We are allowed to sympathise with each of the characters regardless of their age, race or gender.

Where the movie fails is in trying to stretch the connections between its superficially connected parts. The chain of events that lead to the numerous tragedies in the film stretch credibility almost to the point comedy by the end of the film.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

xkcd

Wonderfully warped cartoon humour for nerds: xkcd

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

the show with zefrank

I've somewhat belatedly discovered the show with zefrank. Some highlights include:
Thanks to TWIT for the tip.

Also in the realm of video blogs is Tiki Bar TV - less compelling, but still good, clean, drunken fun.