Category Archives: Opinion
I have friends who are Hippie Earth Mother types. They tend to have in common a reflexive hate for non-hippie things, such as guns, nuclear power, genetically modified foods, and gasoline engines. It’s always something. Many of my programming geek friends have in common a reflexive love of Unix or a hatred of anything Microsoft.
To me, people with reflexive hates — or loves — just seem to beg for teasing, an education that certainty is dangerous, and that it’s good to not take things too seriously. (The education comes from repeatedly whacking someone’s sensitive spot and ducking, so it’s risky work.) Hot buttons one can’t be teased about lead to ugly territory: hurt feelings, broken jaws, bombs. I think it’s important to tease the deadly serious, is what I’m saying.
So I tease my Hippie Earth Mother friends that gasoline is solar power!
Continue reading
46 Comments | tags: Earth Mother, fossil fuel, gas power, gasoline, geothermal power, gravity, heavy, hippie Earth Mother, hippies, humor, nuclear power, solar power, wind, wind power | posted in Opinion
The post’s title is the name of a trope[1], and while you may not know it by this handle, you have probably run into it. Perhaps from someone combining the terms “old hat” and “just” — or maybe using the more continental “cliché” (ooh la la) about something once revered as ground-breaking. The trope arises from not recognizing the originator of ideas now in common use. For example, Airplane! and Die Hard seem lost among all the similar films that followed.
But this post really isn’t about the trope or the Seinfeld TV show. The title just makes a neat kick-off point and offers some connective tissue. I really do mean I don’t find Jerry Seinfeld all that funny. Ironically, I think the man is a comic genius, and I have high regard for his comic acumen. Yet his stand-up routines leave me cool.
So this post is actually about stuff I don’t find funny (and why not).
Continue reading
26 Comments | tags: A Christmas Carol, Abbott and Costello, blog, blogger, blogging, Charles Dickens, comedy, humor, humor blogs, Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld, soup nazi, sponge worthy, standup comedy | posted in Opinion
Quite some time ago a woman I’d met read me the riot act over my use of the “R” word. When talking about taboo words, one immediately hits the problem of whether to mention the forbidden word, and if so how and how often? A serious discussion can acknowledge the discomfort people have using a term, but usually must refer to it clearly at least once.
In this case the word was “retarded.” My use was descriptive, not pejorative, so I’m not entirely certain I was out-of-bounds. It seems like one of those fuzzy boundary zones where being respectful and polite gives way to being needlessly constrained by the overly sensitive.
But today I have a different ‘R’ word in mind.
Continue reading
13 Comments | tags: Christopher Columbus, football, Indian, Indians, National Football League, native American, NFL, Virgin Islands, Washington | posted in Opinion
Last time I wrote about willful ignorance as one good definition of stupidity. This time, I want to explore some ideas about why there seems a growing amount of it in modern society. Of course that necessitates first addressing the question: Is there a growing amount of it? I believe the answer is yes, but I also believe a lot of the reason for it is the growing complexity of society.
There was a time when a clever person could fix their washing machine or their car. Our machines were fairly simple then: a motor, a few hoses, some wires and belts. It wasn’t hard to figure out. A clever person with experience and tools could even fix their radio or TV. Replacing a burned out “tube” was a common household activity.
Now our machines bear the warning: “No User Serviceable Parts Inside”
Continue reading
25 Comments | tags: Albert Einstein, critical thinking, ignorance, Isaac Newton, stupid, stupid people, stupidity, technology, vacuum tubes, warning labels | posted in Opinion
The New Horizons spacecraft on its lonely way to the planet Pluto.
As far as I’m concerned, Pluto is — and will always be — a planet. I don’t at all dispute the 2006 decision of the IAU (International Astronomical Union) to classify planets in a way that excludes Pluto (and a lot of other rocks out there). Clearly without that classification, we’d end up with hundreds of new planets. I’m just saying that Pluto gets honorary planet status; it gets “grandfathered in” as one of the original nine.
Why am I writing about this now? Well, it came up in a (real world) discussion recently, so it’s on my mind. The reason it came up was due to a discussion about the New Horizons space mission, which will visit Pluto (the planet) in July of next year — a mere 190 days away. We’ve been waiting since January of 2006 — over eight years!
And I’m not alone in insisting on Pluto’s planetary status; far from it!
Continue reading
1 Comment | tags: Clyde Tombaugh, Disney dog, dwarf planet, IAU, Illinois, Lowell Observatory, New Horizons, New Mexico, planet, Pluto, Pluto is a planet, solar system, Venetia Burney | posted in Opinion, Science
I’m surprised that, despite writing in a lot of comments about how — and if — the world is changing, I’ve never actually written a post about it. I suppose it’s implicit in some of the things I’ve explored, but I’ve never focused on it directly. That’s odd because it’s a key topic of interest, and I’ve always intended to get into it here.
Maybe I tend to avoid it because, as a misanthropic aging curmudgeon, I basically think the world is going seriously downhill, and that’s not a point of view most people want to hear about. And to be honest, it can be hard to separate out stuff I don’t like from stuff I think isn’t good. This is, in part, a search for objective criteria (and comment).
Premise: The world has changed, in many ways for the worse.
Continue reading
19 Comments | tags: change, changes, changing world, communications, Ecclesiastes 1, global village, Marshall McLuhan, movie violence, TV violence | posted in Life, Opinion
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was…”
Many of you will recognize that as the first words of John 1:1 in the Christian New Testament Bible. There’s also a cross-reference to the very first words of that Bible (Old Testament in this case), “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
This is about words and about beginnings.
Others might recognize it as a conflation of the lead-in to a Moody Blues tune, OM, from In Search of the Lost Chord, and the title of a song from another album, In the Beginning, from On the Threshold of a Dream.
(Yes “album.” I’m old!)
Continue reading
23 Comments | tags: brain, brain mind problem, computationalism, computer guy, human brain, human mind, logos, Marriage, Moody Blues, rational mind, René Descartes, Theory of Consciousness, theory of mind | posted in Baseball, Basics, Books, Computers, Life, Movies, Opinion, Philosophy, Politics, Rant, Science, Society, The Interweb, TV
Logos con carne 