March 2009 Archives

We're all wizards now.   A C Clarke's often cited,paraphrased or mangle quote is appropriate for many of the daily tasks we take for granted.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' 1972 A. C. Clarke Lost Worlds

Over the last couple of weeks I've found that walk up magic and showing people how to get the most out of a cell phone leads to the same reaction. ( the latter is far less likely to get you  burned as a witch in some of our undeveloped  3g areas) 

 Shazam is one of those apps that is cooler than a cold man's  cold bits  during an Alaskan  Mr Ice Pants festival.   For the last  few months  I've been trying to find out the names of a couple of songs that are played  at the  good old hockey game. Both tracks  have no music ,  have really short hooks and one could safely classify them as being graduates from the " bleep bleep thump"  school.

I'd sat with an iPhone in my pocket  game after game while forgetting I had the means to do so with me. Loaded the shazam app from the stadium wifi,  awaited the song to come on and set it to capture.  This is not an easy capture.  That's a PA  with  cheering and pervasive  clapping   but Shazam was  able to determine most of the songs under these conditions.    Just load, lift and listen and it does the rest on your iPhone or Android device and you can save it for later, or buy it  now.   My god a  business model on the mobile web what a wondrous age we live in!

 

That's still not the interesting part.  Why did it take so long to put this 2+2  together?   Turns out it was an ambiguity that I could live with but my  wife always  kept asking about.. "what song's that"   is a problem that's harder to live with. 

Locating the good apps quickly then  finding out what is, and isn't useful , could be a second career,  a really badly remunerated  second career.   So best make it a hobbyto find out what your friends regularly overlook  when relating to the net  and   with your  best  Carnac the magnificient  impression  hold the phone  to your head and proceed to  amaze.

 Why spend the time?  Most of the coolest apps  work when   you have an audience,  heck  in that  stadium of 11,000 people only  2 were logged in on the  two presence services I use. In general  I feel like a "boy and his iPod dog" wandering the  desert , Phoenix  looks pretty much looks like  distopic sci fi anyway so it's not too hard to play along.

Shooter planned 'to go out in grand style,' investigator says - CNN.com

It's only semantics, right? The reason I am such a pain on the classification on weapons in the media should be obvious to you. If it's not seek help. Here's the wiki entry for the SKS. As you can see  does not fit the definition of assault weapon, nor does the Bushmaster.

The weapons restricted under the last assault weapon ban were not assault weapons either. Just read it. If you want to ban things least take the time to understand what you are talking about on the most basic level.

McLendon was armed with two assault rifles -- an SKS..

Yet more proof that legislators should not be allowed to create laws without taking a drug test.I'm not suggesting that they are high on anything more than the smell of their own farts but the resulting proposals do nothing to support that view:)

First let's head off to a tiny little state with big problems.

Rhode Island proposal: Youth sports oversight, or overreach? - CNN.com

Democratic Sen. John Tassoni Jr. introduced a bill that would create a youth sports oversight council on the state level. The council would act as mediator in disputes between parents of youth athletes and sports officials.

I can't wait till they mandate a video playback rule for all games involving more than three people. Let's make an assumption that most of the parents were publicly educated.  How has their education and socialization by the state led to them being incapable , least in the eyes of their masters, from resolving disputes of a pretty trivial nature?  Some would say it's working too well should you want a relatively docile population that you relies on you for every little thing.

Now off to a tiny minded state, at least where the legislators are concerned.

Oklahoma state rep wanted to prevent Prof Dawkins speaking to university,

"œThe God Delusion", and public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma;

So says state rep Thomsen in house resolution HR1015 which replaced the foaming that the mouth version.I am glad they are interested in diversity because I can't work out if this is pandering or stupidity.Could Kansas employ Oklahoma as their village idiot?  Would more money for education solves this level of idiocy? Maybe not Rep Thomsen is on the education sub committee. Here's a follow up Dawkin's appearance.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves there are other deserving applicants.

Put another ban on the Barbie mate!

"Democrat Jeff Eldridge introduced a bill in the House of Delegates on Tuesday that would ban the sale of Barbie dolls - and "other dolls that influence girls to be beautiful" - in West Virginia."

Yet not a ban on male dolls without genitalia that influence people to become Democrats. 

This is a fluffier book than Bonk or Stiff both grounded in a reality that's going to be a lot harder to nail in a book about research into the afterlife. Amongst other things Roach takes a look at ectoplasm, EVP that's the people that listen to noise and claim to hear things, past lives,attends a class in the UK on how to be a medium. She also looks at the science of testing "psychics" like DuBois and other cold readers that are cynical ,delusional or both ( my bias). That blunt an answer is something this book isn't going to provide for you but it's probably a good thing that she's not attempting to do that. She's a very entertaining writer,her footnotes amusing,and there's real science to follow up on. I just didn't learn as much as her prior works since it's hard to accumulate a body of evidence for life after death when all we have is evidence of bodies.