Foolproof Equations for a Perfect Life

The BBC documentary “Foolproof Equations for a Perfect Life” was broadcast last night on SBS TV.  This documentary, by Garth Sundrem, attempts to show how mathematics can be used to help make rational decisions about all aspects of our lives. Even how to get a date. now where are my old maths books?

Whilst somewhat light hearted and lightweight the documentary did show how the brain can be easily tricked and how, no matter how rational we think we are, we are still prone to make irrational decisions sometimes.

I liked the segment where he got people to meet someone new and just before they met this person they were given either a hot or cold drink to hold. All the people who held the hot drink thought the new person was a nice guy and they would probably employ him. The cold drink holders either didn’t like the new person or were ambivalent towards him. Yes it was a very small sample size and not a very scientific experiment, but if I’m ever looking for a new job I’ll try and get the interviewers to hold a hot cup of coffee first.

Another interesting section was the topic of “loss aversion” where even though we stand to gain more than we would lose, our fear of loss prevents us. They demonstrated this by presenting people with money in two different ways and then asking them to gamble of not. The people who ‘thought’ they were making a loss gambled, even though they had already made as much money as the people who hadn’t ‘made a loss’ . You can see this section of the documentary here.

There are more sections of the documentary on the above link or supposedly you can find the whole documentary in five parts on youtube.

Scientific Blogging also has  a nice write up on this documentary.

Overall, interesting and a bit of fun, but not to be taken too seriously. As Garth says himself in the comments on the above link:

Of course it’s pseudoscience! Didn’t you get the joke? It’s funny, when I give book talks, my best audience is mathematicians with a sense of humor and my worst audience is mathematicians without…

To modify an equation from the comments on Garth’s blog:

A + (B+B⁽ⁿ⁺¹⁾ ) + C = D

Where:
A = me,
B = Bourbon (or Beer, or whatever your favourite tipple is),
C = Chocolate, and
D =  Depressed lonely person

I’m sure there a few of us who live that equation?

Pope wants humanity ‘saved’ from homosexuality

I wasn’t going to bother blogging today, but when I heard this headline on the news, I knew I had to say something.

In the Pope’s annual Christmas speech he stated that:

… saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. from ABC News

Reading between the lines the Pope seems to be inferring that if nothing is done to stop them ‘teh gays’ will take over the world, and humanity will then fade away. Well unless everyone on the planet suddenly becomes homosexual, and I for one am not about to (sorry guys, LOL), I don’t think we have anything to worry about.

I think I can confidently state that heterosexuals are as likely to become homosexual as homosexuals are to become heterosexual. I don’t think the Pope realises that your sexuality is not something you choose. Just because you legalise homosexuality, and give the GLBT community all the same rights and privileges as everyone else, it will not suddenly cause everyone to decide to become gay.

Quite rightly gay groups and activists have labelled the Pope’s comments as irresponsible and unacceptable.

Even one of Australia’s Catholic Bishops has criticised the Pope’s comments.

Happy Christmas Pope, you twat.

Why aren’t PC-level filters sufficient?

Because most people are stupid. Well, that’s the inference I get from Senator Conroy’s response to my comment on the governments website.

Some while back the government opened their pathetic excuse for a blog where people could respond to the ISP Filtering debacle [side note: there are now 768 comments on his ‘blog’, I wonder how many others Conroy responded to?) . I left two comments and Senator Conroy has responded to one of them.

Whatever happened to parents being responsible for what their children view? The government has already provided a PC based filtering system, which only about 3% of households took up. Which, to me, just goes to show most parents don’t care about filtering anyway.

Posted by OzAtheist / 10 Dec 2008 10:21am / Permalink

Conroy’s response:

The previous Government’s Protecting Australian Families Online strategy focused on providing families with PC-level filtering software. However, despite an $84.8 million government program and $15.5 million in advertising, only about two per cent of households with dependent children are using a filter. Unfortunately, many parents do not have the technical skills or knowledge to install and manage PC-level filters. ISP-level filtering could provide important protection for those families with limited technical expertise.

We understand that ISP filtering is not a ‘silver bullet’ for this purpose. However, in conjunction with the Government’s numerous other initiatives in this area, we believe it can make an important contribution to protecting children online.

Stephen Conroy

Which I think is a cop out. It is obvious that parents are just not bothered with filtering, they are too stupid or both. Either way filtering everyone is hardly an appropriate response.

The government has already spent  over $100M on previous filters that have proved a complete flop, why spend more? Are the children really in that much trouble on the net? From some reports in the media, chat programs such as messenger pose more of a threat than children just accidently stumbling upon porn on the net. From what I’ve heard Conroy’s filter won’t protect children on chat programs. Really why is he bothering?

Interesting Conroy’s own admission that the filtering is “not a ‘silver bullet’”, this is a bit of a departure from early statements he made.

Hat Tip to Sean for finding the response, and letting me know about it via twitter. What you aren’t on twitter?

 

Technorati Tags: Internet Filter,Censorship,Conroy

more Bah Humbug

Sometimes a picture with words says more than just a picture.

Some Christmas greetings and words of wisdom:

or more to the point, how up-tight and stupid the religious are. LOL

BWAHAHA, I’m not sorry.

luv the speech bubble

now that’s more like what this time of year is really all about

don’t tell the littlies

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one last one that has nothing to do with Christmas, I just like it, then again I’m a bit weird like that

wonder what the question is  **snerk**

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Have a nice holiday people, I’m on leave for the next two weeks, but I’ll still be blogging.

Hat Tip to Tracey Treasure, via Vamp, for finding the wrongcards site (where all these pics were ripped from), why not send one to friends, I know I did.

Atheist Advertising too Controversial in Australia

In previous posts I’ve discussed how the Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA) are trying in vain to place adverts on buses around Australia. Well now they have lodged a complaint with the Tasmanian Anti-discrimination Commissioner.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc is to complain to the Tasmanian Anti-discrimination Commissioner following the refusal of Metro Tasmania, a State owned bus company, to display its advertisements.

President of the Foundation, David Nicholls said: “Following legal advice we have decided to lodge the complaint. It is unfortunate the AFA has to go down this path to achieve justice. However, there is no grudge involved here, just a simple matter of what is right.”

David Nicholls said atheists worldwide have an important message for humanity and one that is quite urgent. He said the denial of an opportunity to express that message on Public Transport had possibly resulted from unfounded concerns in executive decision making. Mr Nicholls said he expected a good outcome to the complaint and envisaged the slogan, “Atheism – Celebrate reason! Sleep in on Sunday mornings” to soon be on a bus near you.

Hobart lawyer James Crotty has been retained to advise on the complaint.

hat tip to Sean

In more news of discrimination against atheists and free speech comes this piece of news from Albury-Wodonga. Kieran saw a good deal for classified adverts in his local newspaper so decided he’d post an atheist message:

The Border Mail has a classifieds deal on, $1.10 a line for a Christmas greeting. I rang up, and requested the following:

Christians, There probably is no god, so stop worrying and enjoy life – Kieran.

The lady at the other end said “No”.

Surprise, surprise, they wouldn’t accept it.  If the Border Mail is anything like my local rag, The Star, it will be filled with religious adverts, so why not one tiny atheist one?

In fact page 18 of The Star, dated 17 December, is a whole page advertising feature for Christmas church services. There are two letters, one from the Catholic Bishop and one from the Anglican Bishop, and eleven (11) pictorial adverts for various churches and their Christmas services. I don’t’ have a problem with that, if they’ve paid, they are fully entitled to, I’ll just ignore that page. However if the same newspaper refuses to place an atheist (or even a hindu, muslim or other religion) advert then that is discrimination, censorship and denial of free speech.

Kieran has asked for others to try and place an atheist message in his local paper and has even offered to pay for it:

If anyone manages to sneak a good atheist message into the Border Mail’s Christmas greetings, I’ll pay for it.

Intersting idea, and hat tip to The Atheist Blogger.

Bailout

I’m sure by now you all know the American government is going to bailout the US car industry?

Well here’s the advert for the bailout. TIC

Bailout Advert

click to embiggen – make sure you read the fine print

I’m an Atheist

According to the “Which Enemy of the Christian Faith Are You?” quiz I’m an atheist. Hardly surprising really.

I'm an Atheist

Go ahead, do the quick quiz, it’s only ten questions, find out which enemy of the Christian faith you are. Once you’ve got your results click on the ‘See all enemies?’ link and have a look at all the possible enemies,  some are quite funny, I like the Catholic Priest one.

One other thing for today, Zeno left a comment in my about page today with a link to his site selling anti-religious t-shirts. Normally I think it’s bad etiquette for a first post to be plugging your own blog, especially if you are trying to flog something. But I’ve given Zeno the benefit of the doubt this time as some of his t-shirts are quite funny, in an obscene way. Anyway, here’s the link to his blog, which has links to his apparel.  Don’t think I’ll be this nice and generous next time.  🙂

Hat Tip to Adrian at The Atheist Blogger for the link to the quiz.

merry whatever from downunder

Seeing as I’m suffering from writers block (see last post) I thought I’d post another picture.

This is my Christmas Tree, which is hanging upside down from the ceiling. Why? Why not?

writers block

I think I’m suffering from writers block. I’ve got 3 drafts backed up and I keep finding new things to write about, but I struggle to put into words what I want to say. I also seem to be lacking enthusiasm at the moment.

Have any of you other bloggers suffered from writers block and/or lack of enthusiasm? Hints and tips to get over this would be appreciated.

Why Internet Filtering is NOT a good idea

When someone decides the picture on an album cover is offensive and adds it to a black-list then everyone suffers. from Wikipedia added to child pornography blacklist

Wikipedia has been blacklisted by a British online child pornography watchdog, causing almost every internet user in Britain to be blocked from contributing to the site anonymously.

The British Government-backed Internet Watch Foundation blacklisted Wikipedia over an article on the 1976 album Virgin Killer by German heavy metal band Scorpions.

At issue was a screen shot of the album cover, published with the article, that featured a naked, young girl with her genitals obscured by a simulated tear in the photograph.

After hearing of the blacklisting, Britain’s six main internet service providers blocked their users from accessing the article.

Here in Australia our government is considering having mandatory ISP filtering, unlike the UK where it is not compulsory. But as can be seen if something is considered child pornography then most operators will also consider it such, quite likely to avoid being seen as being soft on child pornography, it then becomes a matter of self censorship. Having seen the offending picture I can see how it could be considered child pornography, but then again I thought Bell Henson‘s pictures were as well.

The problem with the ban is that now all users appear to wikipedia as one of six users (the six ISPs blocking the site), so if just one user gets banned then all users on that ISP will be banned from modifying wikipedia. This may seem a bit innocuous but think of the consequences.

One person complains to the watchdog (and in this case it was only one user), the site gets blacklisted, all users on those six ISPs (about 95% of home internet users) now appear as one of six users. Lets say six people, one on each of the six ISPs, purposefully get themselves banned by wikipedia, then just about every internet user can no longer edit anonymously. Then using an alternate ISP these nefarious gang of six edit various wikipedia sites, the rest of the populace now finds it difficult to correct these edits. These new entries come

I know I’m probably being a bit paranoid and ‘conspiracy theorist’ here, but it just shows how easy it could be, if mandatory filtering was in place, for a small group of people to wreck  havoc on the internet for everyone else. Worse still, in Australia you might not even know it had happened, as the government doesn’t have to expose which sites have been black-listed.

1984 anyone?

In more political correctness gone wrong, comes the story of the man who has been convicted of possessing child pornography, and then lost his appeal. The offending matter?  A cartoon of Homer Simpson having sex with Lisa Simpson. Yes folks a cartoon! The judge (where do they find these people?)  stated:

the word ‘person’ included fictional or imaginary characters …,”

and

“… The mere fact that the figure depicted departed from a realistic representation in some respects of a human being did not mean that such a figure was not a ‘person’.”

feckin’ genius this judge, even most four year olds know the difference between a cartoon and a person, but not our ‘learned’ judge.

There are a few other bloggers covering this and they have come up with some, at times quite funny, extrapolations of this ruling. How far could this go?