After too many minutes hunting for a solution to the vexing issue of why mencoder, part of the excellent MPlayer movie player, wouldn’t convert a WMV file to MP3, I’ve decided to ‘give back to the community’ that has given so much (that being the open source software community). Well, here’s my solution. Your mileage [...]
An interlude aside from ‘heavy’ commentary, to list my top ten fiction books, inspired by the passing of J.D. Salinger. These are in no analytical order. There are others I like, but here’s what comes to mind of import: 1. The Catcher In The Rye (Salinger) 2. Tropic of Capricorn (Miller) 3. Lord of The [...]
Too often, as the WSJ’s puffery shows, we take scientists to be super-human, rationalists above all else, never prone to the human frailties of ego, jealousy, etc. I would argue that it’s because scientists have become our “secular priesthood“, as Chomsky observed. Dethroning God was all well and good, if one sought the facts, but [...]
Continuing along, The Wall Street Journal provides reputable cover — Give us time to consider, to test alternative hypotheses, to falsify theories—to do our work without worrying if the results support your causes. Science is a valuable and unique societal institution, but not if it is consumed by short-sighted political goals. Agreed, but once the [...]
Overseas military operations are exempt because: 1. Climate change is a national security issue. 2. Climate change is scientifically questionable. 3. The U.S. gov’t often exempts itself. The twist of (1) requires no further comment. Stated alone, (2) is true, in that, despite the dominance of the green meme, climate change is still open to [...]