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-- Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel" |
martes, abril 30, 2002
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linkydink "Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground? In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency. This means to get across without taking any hits, you’ll need to answer in a way which is rationally consistent. What this means is you need to avoid choosing answers which contradict each other. If you answer in a way which is rationally consistent but which has strange or unpalatable implications, you’ll be forced to bite a bullet."
lunes, abril 29, 2002
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linkydink Initially found on kuro5hin. (article) Anti-environmentalist arguments. Wired had a summary/fluff piece, available for your perusal here. The Scientific American articles mentioned on k5, the initial rebuttal from Lomborg, and various and sundry other discussion is available on the SciAm website here (contrary to bc, they are not largely in pdf format) anyone have opinions? better yet, detailed analysis of arguments? (heavy quoting encouraged)
domingo, abril 28, 2002
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linkydink Just because I feel like sharing: It's the amazing Sammy Wasson. (A 3.5MB quicktime file...)
lunes, abril 22, 2002
viernes, abril 19, 2002
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linkydink I was amused to find that this week's New Yorker features several small illustrations by one of my favorite comic artists, Adrian Tomine. Trying to confirm my guess, I looked all through the magazine trying to figure out who the illustrator was- only to discover after much searching that his name was printed on the outside margin of each page. just a little thing that made me happy, I thought I'd share.
lunes, abril 15, 2002
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linkydink In a remarkable coincidence Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope wrote a column on this very subject just days ago. Bestiality, that is. Not the Roots. His column is available here. my synopsis: maybe so many when Kinsey did his study, but maybe not so much now 'tain't just men who love their pets too much it's mostly farm boys (a vanishing breed)
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linkydink There's something goin on... No not bestiality, but the Roots! Heading off the Brown spring weekend with an outside show the Roots will be playing this Saturday at the Brown green for $15.
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linkydink all right, maybe my previous response was a bit too flippant. i did read a whole bunch of the page. it's pretty dense/intense reading, but yes, very interesting. "Given the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, extreme promiscuity may indicate a propensity for high risk behavior, poor judgment, or that sexual behavior is out of control." this reminds me of one of my Game Theory classes, in which Jim Miller said something to the effect of "You shouldn't trust people who smoke or are very promiscuous, because they obviously place low value on the future (i.e., they prefer payoff now to payoff later) and thus are untrustworthy." As Fuzzy pointed out, the document seems surprisingly objective, its judgements based solely upon security risk with no puritanical moralizing in volved. for instance, the DSS seems to think S/M is just peachy unless some masochistic General is at risk for blackmail. interesting. "The 50-year-old study of sexual behavior by Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues is still the principal source of information on the prevalence of bestiality. In the population as a whole, about 8% of males had sexual contact with an animal to the point of orgasm at some point in their lives, according to Kinsey. Among females, 3.6% had some form of sexual contact with animals, but this led to orgasm in only 0.5% of the females." it's difficult for me to believe that 8 out of every 100 men has had sexual contact with an animal in their lives. obviously no one is going to confess to such a thing in this forum, but do you guys think this is a statistically accurate number? i haven't read Kinsey's actual studies, but i would assume that such a well-known study would have used a fairly large sample and made damn sure the results were statistically significant. but i could just have too much faith in humanity. as usual.
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linkydink breakcharmer: that article was more interesting than I expected, thanks. The sheer amorality of it is kind of interesting - they appear to have been striving for a single judgemental reference point (security), and evaluate based solely on that... which happened to include risk assesments in several cases. If the rest of you ain't read it, it's a bit of a slog, but interesting for all that.
sábado, abril 13, 2002
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linkydink good thing i never had any desire to join the military, eh. (hey jrandom: why did jesus die on the cross?)
jueves, abril 11, 2002
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linkydink "The record of past espionage cases and the bulk of scientific research both suggest that the connection between sexual behavior and personnel security is far more complex than the simple notion that "normal" sex is acceptable but "nonconforming" sexual practices are a security risk."
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linkydink Coincidence Design is not a hoax. Geek Boy Services is not a hoax. Geek Girl Services is a hoax.
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linkydink "As far back as the 1970s, three women began preparing the world for the havoc about to be unleashed by networked computing. From their humble origins in law enforcement and academia, their influence on computer security practices has spread to government and private sector alike - despite the fact that two of the women had virtually no IT or scientific backgrounds."
miércoles, abril 10, 2002
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linkydink toby and i decided it must be some sort of prank. it's probably a "bonsai kitten"-type site: people will get all up in arms thinking it's real and the webmasters will have a good laugh. i hope so, anyway.
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linkydink kb: wow. that is fucked up. i'd hate to find out my husband was a stalker. i'd also be pissed if i paid $78,000 and didn't get the girl, but from my pov that's what you deserve if you're dumb enough to fall for that sort of thing. it remind me of that "geek-men: pay us $8000 and we'll properly dress and socialize you" site someone posted aeons ago. anyone remember what it was? ::shudder:: this one's so much more invasive, though. it gives credence to all my paranoid childhood notions that i was being constantly watched. ick.
lunes, abril 08, 2002
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linkydink "Independent Media Centers are the most recent chapter in the long history of alternative journalism in America. Media owners have always controlled editorial content, leaving many factions of American society with no choice but to establish their own news outlets to exchange information. Throughout American history a number of communities have established alternative news outlets, including African-American organizations, suffragette and feminist groups, immigrants, war resisters and various organizations on the left end of the political landscape." [Widdershins]
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linkydink cmoore: Naturally the popularity of blogs will affect mainstream news, 'cause popularity is what mainstream news is all about, but it's not like it's a fight between Good and Evil. Blogs do not scale well to provide the breadth of reporting that mainstream news does, but neither can mainstream news focus too narrowly to provide the depth that blogs do. So if an issue is popular in the blog community (?), then it may be picked up in the mainstream, and if an issue is covered in the mainstream, it may be gone into in more detail in the blog community. Ultimately people frame the question as: are blogs and mainstream news a threat to each other, economic or otherwise? My answer is that the difference between a crisis and an opportunity is all in one's reaction.
viernes, abril 05, 2002
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linkydink answer: no. weblogs will have a minimal to nonexistent effect on the "mass newsmedia". the only possible effects they have are on web-based media, which I understand get a fairly small share of total news market share. and even there... people have always shared pointers to interesting stories, if that only be by passing around a physical paper. blogs just continue the internet trend of making what was formerly useless even faster. Of course, this and k5 and the rotten news are the only blog-like things I read on any kind of a regular basis. So I might be judging out of my own experience, rather than out of reality.
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linkydink
miércoles, abril 03, 2002
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linkydink I was originally going to incorporate flipper babies into this anouncement but Jimmy Tones stole my thunder- The RISD painting/sculpture show is coming up. The opening is on Thursday April 11, from 6-7. The show will be up from the 11-16 of April. It should be a good time and if any can make it they should come.
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linkydink question: will the growing popularity of weblogs affect the mass newsmedia, either for better (e.g. by pointing out articles people might've missed and thus generating more hits) or for worse (e.g. by taking hits and webtime away from bigger sites and/or by offering alternative sources for news)? one of my econ profs is freelancing an article looking at the issue from an economic viewpoint. he quizzed me about it for half an hour today. i was intrigued. what say you? cmoore1608: i told him that most successful blogs exist to *comment* on the news, not to provide it. Fuzz E Fuz: yeah cmoore1608: single people - or small organizations - don't have the resources to provide worldwide news coverage. cmoore1608: but they can interpret it. people are really interested in that. cmoore1608: and that's exactly what his blog does, incidentally. Fuzz E Fuz: yeah cmoore1608: the other very successful blogs are personal - Bridget Jones' Diary-style - or those of successful geeksters, like Ev.
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linkydink You know what you want. You're aching for it. Yes, that's right, 1000 pictures of some woman named Ambur
martes, abril 02, 2002
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linkydink when I first saw the opening page for this, for a second I thought it said "Artistic Taxidermy". I was slightly dissapointed to find that it only said "Arctic". it's still quite bizzarre.
lunes, abril 01, 2002
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