Oh My Science!

Mardi Gras Hangover Day

2009-02-25T19:20:00.000-08:00

So today is the assigned hangover day for Mardi Gras, some people call it Ash Wednesday. It's this strange custom that Catholics have where they go to mass on a Wednesday and get ashes (looks like dirt) smudged on their foreheads. It's supposed to be in the shape of the cross, but obviously some priests never learned finger painting. Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance, which is always good in my book, especially because you're probably feeling guilty about ogling those boobies the day before. There's just one small problem I've noticed, and it has to do with listening comprehension. The gospel for the day is from Matthew chapter 6: (emphasis mine)

1	"Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2	"Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
3	But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4	so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5	"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
6	But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
16	"And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
17	But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
18	that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

So it goes. Many Catholics who are feeling extra pious today will leave the ash on their forehead all day in direct contradiction of the gospel. I don't know how plainer I can make this. I feel like either people don't listen to anything when they are at Church (which is true of a lot of people) or they don't let the readings into any rational portion of their minds. It's quite simple, but the Catholic Church and most other Christian denominations are completely disregarding this reading. If they truly followed Jesus, then there would be no churches, no temples, no cathedrals, and certainly no Ash Wednesday. If every Christian followed this passage to the line like they claim they do, then I don't think you would be seeing such a strong push back by atheists and agnostics.

Also, head over to Digital Consciousness for Michael's coming out post!

God on Trial

2008-11-24T22:52:00.000-08:00

Recently PBS had showed a docu-drama about a group of inmates in Auschwitz who put god on trial, because they blamed him for their situation. Here's a 10 minute clip that I thought was really powerful, and I find to be a strong argument against those who claim they get their morality from the bible.

Dancing.

2008-07-22T22:56:00.000-07:00

I like dancing. Especially this kind of dancing:

Yes, indeed.

You can see it in higher quality here.

MMORPG history, woes of late, and hope for the future

2008-07-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

So I've been playing mmo's for 6-7 years. I consider it to be a staple part of my video gaming budget. I started with Everquest, which I played for probably just a month or two before quitting because I lost my corpse in the forest, and thus, all my stuff. I think I was just too young to realize what was going on. Then my friends and I got together and played Earth and Beyond. It was a space-based games with ships and stuff, played that for about 6 months before quitting for what we thought was going to be planetside. Turned out, another much better game was about to be released: Star Wars Galaxies.

The first year if SWG was pretty much the best game ever. There was no such thing as 'levels,' just 32 profession trees with which to spread your skillpoints around in. Huge, open planets, non-instanced housing, guild halls, player cities, mounts, vehicles, space, kickin' ass. For the first half of that, there were no jedi, and it was good. I think, and others do too, that the addition of jedis kind of ruined the open template system of leveling, by introducing a tree in which one dedicated all of his points and was more powerful. (If you're not familiar with the old swg system, it's kind of complicated, so I won't explain it here) So after that year, SOE came up with this 'brilliant' plan to revamp the combat system with the "Combat Upgrade." So, we quit the game before that happened, which turned out to be a good idea. We then sat idle for a few months before a monster was released: World of Warcraft.

WoW pretty much ate my last two years of high school. Blizzard made a quality game. Recently, though, it's pretty much out of hand and ridiculous. Not to mention it's the first like huge mainstream MMO; everyone has heard of WoW, and most people who don't play MMOs (and a lot who do) laugh at it. Anyway, enough about WoW, it's so lame and dumb.

So I've been spending the last year jumping from game to game, not finding a game I really enjoy. Pirates of the Burning Sea, Tabula Rasa, Eve, Age of Conan, and a return to SWG, all turned out flat. I feel like since the release of WoW, new mmo's just don't seem to live up to the wonder that SWG at launch had. But now, there's hope!

EA bought two other major companies which are creating MMO's. The first, which will be released this fall, is Warhammer Online. I've been following this for over a year (applied for beta last summer, still nothing). This game is separating itself from other recent releases in that it actually has unique gameplay elements such as public quests and a very extensive siege-based pvp system. I will definitely be playing this one, hopefully for a long time, but we'll see.

The second game, which was just announced at E3, is what I'm really looking forward to. There's been rumors floating around for a while about it, and it turns out they are true. Bioware, the creator of KOTOR, is making an old republic timeline Star Wars mmo!! This is great news. What I'm hoping, of course, is that they take what SOE failed with in SWG, and make an amazing star wars mmo that doesn't get dragged down by brainless Sony execs a year into its release. I also think that the old republic is a much more exciting and open-ended time than the galactic civil war of post-deathstar-destruction. Mainly: Mandolorians are still around! Win!

Long post is long. =D

Probably the Best Commercial Ever

2008-06-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

is the new Discovery Channel commercial. It's amazing, and by amazing I meaned the first time I saw it I almost teared up. It's brilliant. Watch it:

And even Randall Munroe agrees with me, here's his tribute to the ad:

Agree?

Well, This is Distressing

2008-06-25T21:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/06/25/republicans-more-likely-to-be-wrong-about-universe-but-not-by-much/

Whenever I argue with someone about creationism, they'll say, "well, yes, there are some crazies, but there are not very many, so it's nothing to worry about." Obviously, there are a lot of them, and they do create a problem.

And they laugh at Americans for being stupid.

Need things to do!

2008-06-24T22:51:00.000-07:00

At times it is boring here, with just one class everyday. I need things to do! Right now I fill my time with mummorpegging and tv watching, though I have reinvested myself into learning guitar, which is coming along nicely now. Now I turn to my audience, however small, to give me ideas for things to do/learn!! Must accomplish something!

Feedback please!

=D

On Morality

2008-06-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I had an argument with my mom about morality. She holds the commonly accepted view among religious people that morality comes from religion. Additionally, without a god dishing out eternal punishments, there's no reason to be good. (In other words, without god, you can be as selfish as you want as long as you can get away with it) I would argue, of course, then plenty of people (religious and nonreligious alike) do that anyway. My point is that morality has no basis in religious practice or dogma. Morality is based both in evolution (thus built into our dna) and a social construct. (Note: I write as I go, so excuse any lack of construction)

As far as it being a cultural/social construct, it's not hard to see how the collective conscious of humanity has changed over the past few thousand years. We no longer allow slaves, we're learning to treat everyone, regardless of race, as equals. Just last week, gay marriages were made legal in California, which is a big step. The ironic thing is, religious people claim morality as their own, yet they are the big force in which equality is denied those which disagree with their views. The fact is, the more secular humanity becomes, the more moral we become, and more disrespected groups come under the wing of equality.

When homo sapiens were fresh, we lived in tribes and family packs. It was beneficial to the group to look after each other. Those who were a detriment to the tribe would be much less likely to survive and/or reproduce. Thus, the genes which predisposed individuals to contribute to the group continued through the generations. If we look to nature, there are four good Darwinian reasons for individuals to be altruistic, generous or 'moral' towards each other. I'll list them here, pulled from Richard Dawkins:

First, there is the special case of genertic kinship. Second, there is reciprocation: the repayment of favours given, and the giving of favours in 'anticipation' of payback. Following on from this there is, third, the Darwinian benefit of acquiring a reputation for generosity and kindness. And fourth, there is the particular additional benefit of conspicuous generosity as a way of buying unfakeably authentic advertising.

I'm sure you'll say to yourself: "Well yes, we humans do that, no doubt." The fact is, however, that many animals base their survival on these tenents. A species of 'cleaner fish,' (those that clean parasites off bigger fish) Labroides dimidiatus were preffered over their rival Labroides by client fish, as they cleaned diligentily, unlike their rival which often neglected to clean. In this way, Labroides dimidiatus held a good reputation.

In a species of babblers (a bird) the role of sentry is a dangerous one. The individual must expose himself to hawks in order to watch over the group feeding down below. The strange thing to us, however, is that the dominant babbler holds this position, in a sort of "I am better than you, look how helpful I am." This encourages the sentry to be ever vigilent, not only for his safety, but for the safety of the group. If this position was given to the babbler at the bottom of the ladder, it is possible that he would shirk his responsibility. In this way, the group of babblers can survive more easily.

As a final note, evolutionary morality predisposes individuals to be good, it does not force them. For humans, the free will granted to us by our brain allows us to choose to go against this morality, though it is not an easy thing to overcome. That's where culture comes in, if a child is taught from birth to be cynical and selfish, then he will become that. He is simply predisposed to goodness, meaning, if it was possible to raise yourself, you would naturally be good.

Louisiana still doomed...

2008-06-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

It's sad that the first post of this blog has to be a result of anger. Once again, politicians who are viewed as agents of change, vowing to fix the system, fail us. I'm speaking of course of the beloved 'Bobby' Jindal. He certainly seemed like an intelligent and level-headed person when he spoke at St Paul's, but now it's obvious that he's just another religious nutter. In an interview today in 'Face the Nation' on CBSNews (here) , the governor says that 'Intelligent Design' and Evolution should be given equal treatment.

This is beyond terrible. He acts, like the other ID crazies do, as if somehow ID and evolution are on the same footing. I can't believe a person who has a biology degree can possibly not fully ascribe to evolution. The fact is that evolution is based on mountains of evidence, both fossil and experimental, while intelligent design has nothing. Their only attacks are culturally and politically based, they do not support science, only religion, which has no place in schools, and intelligent discussion for that matter.

You can read more about it at Crooks and Liars or Bad Astronomy Blog.