Jack Layton and Obama

Jack Layton, the head of Canada's NDP (New Democratic Party, for you non-Canadians) says he is "picking up" some of the energy of Obama's campaign and may "borrow" from Barack's playbook.

Well, colour me gobsmacked.

What Mr. Layton does not seem to understand is that the Obama campaign and playbook are founded squarely on Barack himself: the man, his words, and most importantly, his charisma. Pointing out similarities in environmental policies and photocopying campaign slogans are not going to make any of that fairy dust rub off on Layton.

How can a man lead a political party for so many years and be so oblivious? This is just making him look pathetic, like the kid in the background waving at the cameras when someone else is being interviewed.

Set up all the jars you like, Jack. You can't bottle lightning.


Technorati tags: Jack Layton, Canadian politics, Barack Obama

How bumblebees fly. And how to be a flyswatter virtuoso

Well, there's another one for the history books. Another trope is dead. For years people have been pointing to scientists' inability to explain how bumblebees could fly, given their bulk and small wings, as the outstanding example of how much we still had to learn.

But Edward Willett of Hassenpfeffer tells us that Michael Dickinson has now illuminated that particular mystery.

More recently, Dickinson combined robotic modeling with slow-motion video to at last answer the question of how honeybees, heavy insects with short wing beats, generate enough lift to fly, in apparent defiance of the calculations of aeronautical engineers.

Dickinson found that bees have an incredibly complex wing beat. The wing sweeps back in a ninety-degree arc, then flips over as it turns, all this happening astonishing 230 times a second. Like the rotation of a propeller, this generates more lift than the ordinary wing beats of larger insects.

This is an impressive accomplishment. Dickinson has also studied the flight pattern of flies, and has used his studies to tell us how to better yield a flyswatter.

“It is best,” says Dickinson, “not to swat at the fly’s starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter.”

Well, for those of us with bad hand/eye coordination, that is not highly useful advice. But never fear. The Walrus comes to the rescue.

Killing flies is a very easy thing. Like the proverbial frog in the pot, flies do not react to slow change. Position the flyswatter over a resting fly very slowly until it's just a few inches away. Then a sudden swat, and the fly is history. They just can't fly fast enough to get out of the swatter's airspace in time.

Technorati tags: Bumblebees, Killing flies

Dimensions six through ten

The conclusion to our romp through time and space.

Wrapping your head around six dimensions

I offhandedly mentioned the existence of ten dimensions the other day in my post on binary thinking. (Go read it. You know you want to. It will help inoculate you against mind-messers.) When my son read it, he directed my attention to these two clips that explain each of the ten dimensions in an understandable way - or at least as close to understandable as that topic can get. This will also mess with your mind, but it is more likely to cause expansion than contraction. So, without further ado, here is the first one, that covers the first six dimensions.

The videos are the explanation of the concepts in the first chapter of the book, Imagining the Tenth Dimension.


Technorati tags: Tenth dimension, Basic physics

The fallacy of binary thinking

Binary thinking has become my newest pet peeve. No, wait! Don't run away. It's not as eggheady as it sounds.

Binary thinking is the kind of thinking that says: "If you aren't A, then you are B. End of discussion." Or: "If you don't do A, then you must do B. End of discussion."

It raises its ugly head all over the place, but most especially in politics. It is the thinking of division, of facile labels. It is highly effective for pressuring or bullying someone who has not recognized it for what it is.

It is doubtful whether it qualifies as thinking at all, seeing as it falls short of even one dimension in its complexity, let alone the three (if you're normal) or four (if you have pretensions to scientific thinking) or ten (if you're a confirmed physicist) that the rest of the world lives in.

Let me illustrate. Binary thinking reduces everything to two points, thusly:

A. .B

In politics, especially of the American variety, this means you're either a bleeding-heart, pinko, atheistic commie or a flinty-eyed, redneck, heartless fascist.

This, of course, ignores the possibility of a complete first dimension, which looks like this:

A................................B

There are lots of intermediate points (an infinite number, if you want to get picky) between A and B. There are a lot of gradations of colour, even between the pinko and the redneck.

And all of this conveniently ignores the fact that there is more than one dimension. (No, I am not going to try to illustrate this with a keyboard. You are going to have to draw your own mental pictures.) There is a point C above the line and a point D below it. Now we are dealing with an embarrassing number of points. Because there are, yanno, God-fearing liberals and atheistic conservatives. And generous conservatives and skin-flint liberals.

It gets better. Between you and the line AB, (Yes, I know it's a square now. Don't get difficult.) there is a point E. And on the other side of AB there is a point F. Because there are, yanno, authoritarian liberals and libertarian liberals. And authoritarian conservatives and libertarian conservatives. And the vast majority, who fall somewhere in the muddled middle of what is now a cube.

In all the vast space of the cube, it seems beyond childish to try to pile every single issue into a box on point A or another on point B. I would be greatly in favour of scrapping the terms "liberal" and "conservative" altogether. They generate more heat than light, and obscure thinking more often than encouraging it.

Please note that binary thinking is also a handy tool of salesmen and advertisers the world over. If you don't buy car seat Brand A, your children will die horrible deaths. (Of course, they are a little more subtle about it, but that's the message they want you to get.) Because a couple of cars have been broken into in your neighbourhood, you had better buy my security system, so you won't be facing a raving lunatic with a knife in your dark living room. (Yes, this one was used on me recently. He put lots of sentences in between Point A and Point B so that I wouldn't catch on to the absurdity. It didn't work.)

Reality can almost never be reduced to an either/or situation. Be suspicious of such simplistic analysis whenever it comes along. And look for the intermediate points, because out on the extreme edge is rarely a good place to be.

ETA: After posting this, I found this quote in my Quote of the Day box:

Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Technorati tags: Binary thinking, Extremism

The Walrus is angry

This is a rant. A personal, hot-under-the-collar, spitting-indignation rant. I normally try to keep the tone of this blog civil and rational and respectful. Not right now. If these things offend you, you might wish to go elsewhere.

There is a young lady on one of the forums I frequent who is twisting in excruciating pain. Why? Because her husband is not sure he wants to stay married to her. He says he loves her, treats her well in every other regard, but he's not too sure about the commitment thing. Worse yet, this young man is a Christian. Or he says he is.

Man, do I want to take this young fellow and smack him up both sides of the head. Real hard. Grow up, buddy. It's time to stop being a self-absorbed adolescent and start acting like a real man. Guess what? Your life is not all about you and the latest little wind of emotion blowing through you. It's not about your self-fulfillment or your self-realization. Marriage is not about your comfort and meeting your needs. Marriage is about love and commitment and meeting somebody else's needs. You stood up in public and swore, before God and man, to do that very thing.

Have you no self-respect? Would you be willing to stand again in front of the same people who were present at your wedding and say, "Yes, she's a fine woman, and I think highly of her, and I know I promised for better or for worse, but I don't think I feel like it anymore. And I am willing to subject her to searing agony because I don't feel too sure about it anymore. But that's OK, right? It's all about how I feel, right? My ambivalent feelings are more important than her happiness, than my word, than my commitment to God." I dare you. Do it.

I wouldn't treat my worst enemy the way you are treating your wife. You claim to love her, and yet you are torturing her as surely as if you were holding hot irons to her skin. I am beyond disgusted. What you desperately need is somebody to tell you to your face that you are being cruel and selfish and that there is absolutely no excuse for it. This is not a time for sympathy and soft words. Get over yourself and get back home and love your wife.

I just hope you have parents or a pastor or a best friend who will not hold back for fear of seeming uncharitable. Honour your word, honour your commitments, honour your wife. That's the only way you'll get my respect and deep down I'm sure you realize that's what you need to do to find some self-respect too.


Technorati tags: Divorce, Marriage, Commitment

For all you Pentecostals out there

I couldn't resist.



Courtesy of I Can Haz Cheeseburger.

Technorati tags: lolcats

The Alchemy of Stone - a book review

The Alchemy of Stone was my introduction to steampunk and a very enjoyable introduction it was too. Ekaterina Sedia writes beautifully and there is a kind of wistful sadness to this book that did not at all fit my preconceived notion of what steampunk was. But then again, it is probably unique to this particular novel.

The Alchemy of Stone is the story of Mattie, a liberated sentient automaton (with built-in hoop skirts!) who earns her living as an alchemist, a calling that is a weird blend of magician and scientist. She feels her non-humanness acutely, not like Pinocchio longing to be a "real" boy, but wanting to be accepted for what she is. It is a lyrical, haunting story of what it means to be marginal, especially in a time of social upheaval. For revolution is brewing...

As befits steampunk, the world in which Mattie lives is roughly reminiscent of Victorian society, but it does not correspond to any identifiable time or place that actually exists. Living gargoyles, sentient automatons, slave labour, and mistreated orphans all rub elbows in this strange place. One of Mattie's strengths, and therefore one of the book's strengths, is her willingness to consider things from all points of view, and her almost total lack of prejudice. This is not to say that she is entirely objective, for she has emotions, knows pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. She does commit to a side, both in her personal life and in the revolution and must pay the price.

I recommend The Alchemy of Stone highly. Ekaterina Sedia is an author to watch, and I will be checking out her other books.

Thanks to Larry of the OF Blog, who hosted a giveaway of a signed ARC of the book, and of course, to Ekaterina herself, who graciously sent it.)


Technorati tags: The Alchemy of Stone, Ekaterina Sedia, Steampunk

The Visitor - movie review

Tom McCarthy's The Visitor is a gem, a tribute to the power of understatement. It is the story of Walter Vale, a professor who has withdrawn from life to the point of being almost catatonic. When he finds his seldom-used New York City apartment inhaibited by a young immigrant couple, victims of a con artist who rented it out to them, he takes pity on them and allows them to stay. The young man, Tarek, is everything Walter is not: vibrant, passionate, full of enthusiasm and energy. They connect through their love of music and Walter is, bit by bit, drawn back into life. And then disaster strikes.


This is a subtle and immensely moving story, told with restraint and dignity. Even the simplest of gestures resonates. Actors Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Hiam Abbass, and Danai Gurira never strike a false note, conveying powerful emotions without sliding into melodrama. The social commentary of the last part of the story is obvious, but it doesn't run away with the movie, leaving it primarily a story about the characters.

If Hollywood could make a habit of producing movies of this quality, I would be in movie theatres more often. I will probably buy the DVD when it comes out, as this is a film I will be happy to see many times.


Technorati tags: The Visitor, Tom McCarthy, Richard Jenkins

In Praise of Weddings

We have a wedding coming up. While the young couple about to marry is wildly, ecstatically happy about getting married, they keep on moaning that they should have eloped. All the minutiae of wedding planning is driving them crazy, even though they are having a relatively simple, low-key wedding.

I sympathize. But I am glad that they're going through with the hassle and bother anyway. I think it's a very important thing, for them and perhaps even more for the rest of us.

Marriage is undervalued nowadays. It truly is the central institution of a society (perhaps the only institution that is present in every human society in one form or another). And it is a good thing that we take the time to show our solidarity toward anyone committing to it.

There is nothing silly about the tradition of showers, for example. While some of the little games might be, a group of women (and sometimes men) coming together to help set up a new household reminds me of the old barnraisers - a concrete way for the community to lend a hand. There is a group of ladies in our church that think it so important that they show up, presents in hand, to every shower hosted at our church (and it's a big church). And if nobody else does, they'll host the shower themselves. It's a small ministry that most of the church is probably unaware of, but a beautiful one.

The act of physically showing up at the wedding to witness and support the vows is yet another affirmation of their importance. And yes, the gifts too are important, both practically and symbolically.

All the planning and headaches are good for the couple too. It helps cement in their minds that this a major commitment, not to be entered into lightly, and not to be left lightly. So when they moan, I sympathize, smile, and tell them that I'm glad they're doing it anyway. How important it all is might not sink in until they're marrying off their own, but that's OK. Then maybe they will realize that they were doing much more than providing an opportunity for a family get-together.

Technorati tags: Weddings