The Prestidigitator

There’s an article in New Scientist that pretty much confirms something I’ve always suspected. If you buy into one kind of woo, the rest start looking pretty too.

Dan Kahan at Yale Law School has found that people’s views on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage predict their position on climate science too. This, he argues, is because social conservatives tend to be pro-business and resist the idea that it is damaging the planet.

I’ve noticed that acquaintances who smugly declared back in school that the moon landing was a hoax tend to belong to the same school of thought as people who think vaccines are a scam, evolution is controversial, crystals have energy and that global warming was a story dredged up hippies.

Another not-so-surprising finding that explains the phenomenon that is Deepak Chopra.

… instigators of denialist movements have more serious psychological problems than most of their followers. “They display all the features of paranoid personality disorder“, he says, including anger, intolerance of criticism, and what psychiatrists call a grandiose sense of their own importance. “Ultimately, their denialism is a mental health problem. That is why these movements all have the same features, especially the underlying conspiracy theory.”

(…)

Denialism has already killed. AIDS denial has killed an estimated 330,000 South Africans. Tobacco denial delayed action to prevent smoking-related deaths. Vaccine denial has given a new lease of life to killer diseases like measles and polio. Meanwhile, climate change denial delays action to prevent warming. The backlash against efforts to fight the flu pandemic could discourage preparations for the next, potentially a more deadly one.

If science is the best way to understand the world and its dangers, and acting on that understanding requires popular support, then denial movements threaten us all.

Also, watch this wonderful TED talk by Michael Specter.

The Catholic Church is caught up in yet another child abuse scandal. But contrary to what many of us would like to think, the church is not in its final throes of relevance. Someone in a ridiculous hat will come up with a convoluted justification and/or a half-assed apology and the sheep will forget. Before you tell me that the Catholic Church does not represent all Christians, let’s not forget that senile prick  Pat Robertson who really does believe with all his black heart that a ‘deal with the devil’ was what caused the earthquake in Haiti. Or that clown, Benny Hinn who gets away with pretty much everything save murder. Yes, I’ve heard that the lunatic fringe is never to be taken seriously but any organization that has over a billion members and has the gall to entertain the delusion that it can control people’s lives while covering up institutional child abuse and rampantly promoting ignorance, hatred and homophobia does not constitute the fringe. Any person, organization or movement incapable of telling the difference between ethics and morality does not deserve to be taken seriously. No bloody exceptions.

This is me, expressing sadness over an acquaintance’s decision to not vaccinate his child because of what he’s rightfully referred to as, media-fuelled skepticism.

Scratch sadness. Incredulity.

I’ve always been for representing both sides of an argument except when the arguments are, like Leonard Susskind would say, bogus. Case in point, intelligent design (an oxymoron if ever there was one). And now, you have a bunch of fringe lunatics promoting vaccine skepticism. Skepticism has never been a bad thing but misinterpreting reports and arriving at fallacious and often self-serving conclusions alway is.

To make matters worse, you have people like Oprah and Bill Maher giving a platform to anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. Again, wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if the aforementioned celebrities did not wield such enormous power over the choices of a demography that include housewives and impressionable twenty somethings.

Thankfully, it’s not that hard to find scientific information, empirical data and responsible reporting when it comes to vaccines.

• How Safe Are Vaccines? – Time Magazine
• Michael Shermer’s Open Letter to Bill Maher
• How to Win Arguments About Vaccines – WIRED (Also, this)
• Drinking the Anti-Vaccine Kool-Aid – Neurologica Blog

I do get that the flames are mostly fanned by parents who’re genuinely scared for their children. But to quote Steven Novella, ”It’s not enough to mean well. You have to get the science right.”

Eleven years ago, after mercilessly tormenting our father, we had our monolithic 386 PC replaced by a Pentium II ‘multimedia’ machine. Needless to say, at the time it was a pretty big deal for my brother and myself. We’d finally gotten a CD ROM drive and there was this one CD; presumably a freebie thrown in by the reseller — Fleetwood Mac: Greatest Hits.

I recall the two of us falling in love with the music. It was refreshingly different from popular music the likes of MTV bombarded us with and very upbeat too unlike brooding lovesick 19 year olds. The music remained buried somewhere in my subconscious until ‘Rhiannon‘ played through the broken speakers at a Pizza Hut outlet in Coimbatore during the final days of college. Predictably, I got a little too excited and one particular gentleman went so far as to say that I was making up band names. A couple of weeks back, a local band at a pub here did an amazing cover of ‘Go Your Own Way‘. Armed with a sense of nostalgia, I went hunting for the CD and found it in the bargain bin of a decrepit music store here in the city this morning.

Listening to it, I’m reminded of sounds, events and even smells long forgotten. It’s amazing how a forty year old band can bring back strong memories ranging from the texture of the carpet at our home back then to our two year old baby sister dancing to ‘Everywhere‘.

The rush is brilliant.

This Valentine’s Day, the Law Commission of India is thinking of all you hormonal, barely out of school, socially challenged 18 year old boys. As if board exams and sparse facial hair weren’t problems enough, the government of India may very well grant you the right to finally propose to that girl you’ve had your eyes on.

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/law-panels-knotty-idea-let-boys-marry-at-18/58277-3.html

”There is no rational, scientific basis to why boys who may vote or take other decisions after 18 must wait to be 21 to marry,” commission member Kirti Singh told UNI.

So rejoice all ye who have been waiting to turn 21. Women however have it tougher; the age of consent is now 16 instead of 15.

How does the Law Commission decide on what laws to change? Aren’t there more important amendments to be made like, say, I don’t know…banning urban ‘gunda’-ism?

Seen near Southbank, Melbourne.

A couple of hours back, I had the chance to play around with the Lego Mindstorms NXT Robot (Alpha Rex) and was blown away by what I saw. I vaguely remember a toy I had as a kid; a robot that had a button on it’s head and made noises when pressed. That was close to 20 years back and boy, how times have changed!

The central part of the kit (also sold separately) is the NXT Intelligent Brick that houses a 32 Bit ARM7 processor, an 8 bit Atmel AVR microcontroller, 4 input ports, 3 output ports and an LCD display. The beauty of the kit is the fact that you can fiddle around with an umpteen number of accessories and build a number of little robotic contraptions. Programming isn’t too difficult either; basic programs can be written directly using the menu on the brick and more complex ones can be downloaded using the USB port. I was told that you could also do it from your mobile phone thanks to Bluetooth connectivity.

The bundled programming software, NXT-G v1.0 allows the user to write a number of simple programs like performing calculations, working servo motors and programming light and sound sensors. The kit comes with 3 identical servo motors and 4 different input sensors; touch, sound, light and ultrasonic. While the majority of us got to play around with Lego blocks as kids, today’s thumb suckers get to fiddle around with exponentially cooler stuff. Pangs of envy are unavoidable.

I’m seriously considering shelling out 379$ to get the Alpha Rex robot. The kid in me has been outed and you can’t coax him back in.

http://mindstorms.lego.com/

Videos of the uber cool NXT in action: 1, 2, 3

Since hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, I’ve decided to take the safe route and respond to Ruhi’s tag. This was harder than I thought it would be; so here are 8 random facts about The Prestidigitator.

1. He switches off his laptop once in two weeks for about an hour; he goes cold turkey if away from the internet for more than 4 hours at a stretch.

2. He has a recurring nightmare that he’s broke and homeless and is convinced that this will come to pass some day.

3. Early on, he wanted to be an astrophysicist but upon finding that he wasn’t smart enough, he set his mind on being a writer but soon found out he wasn’t good at that either. Film maker and philosopher were his other ambitions but these days, he sees himself as a  George Costanza for the 21st century.

4.  After Andrew Largeman from Garden State, he identifies most with the character Rob Gordon from High Fidelity.

5.  His Backstreet Boys phase lasted much longer than that of any other self respecting individual.

6.  He has Cheerios three times a day. With milk.

7.  If asked to his face, he will tell you he doesn’t care much for the band, Journey. But he sings (and taps his feet to) Don’t Stop Believing frequently in the shower.

8.  He is truly a child of the 80s; he will sit through any film, cartoon or song that was made in the 80s. If asked, he will tell you it’s simply because they don’t make stuff like that anymore but it’s mostly because he secretly pines for a simpler time.

There. Finito.

Every time an Indian with a Y chromosome delivers a tirade fueled by patriotism, he is bound to tell you that the Indian culture stands tall amongst all else because of it’s unrivaled respect for women, for the female form, for the working woman, the daughter, the sister, the mother. He will tell you how fortunate a woman in India is for she is not subjected to the evils of an amoral western society. He is the epitome of hypocrisy.

• Guwahati men strip, beat up women protesters: Local men strip and molest protesting tribal women in broad daylight while the police watch. What is most bothersome is that journalists managed to click photos whilst the atrocity was in progress. Are we so passive? The government feels that a 1 Lakh compensation will make up for the emotional and physical torture these women were put through.
• An Infosys employee in the US pushes his 23 year old wife out of a moving car for being unable to come up with enough dowry. Apparently, you don’t have to be uneducated to be an imbecile. The news came to light thanks to a Pakistani doctor.
• 26 year old Ashwini Mohite from Pune gets raped and murdered on her way back from work.

Add to that, a 300% increase in violence against women in Kerala, Taslima Nasreen being harassed for her views and reports that suggest violence against women is at an all time high in Asia.

The blame for these lie not with the victims, like most claim but with a judicial system that unabashedly sides the insecure ego maniacs who perpetrate such acts and let them go away with punishments hardly befitting the crimes. Isn’t it sickening when the moral brigade sticks it’s head out to uphold the culture and tradition of the country while doing nothing to check violence against the fairer sex? Isn’t it high time to stop making lame excuses by blaming films and the media? Is not every woman someone else’s daughter, wife or mother?

(Picture sourced from The Hindu: Online Edition)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0934706/

There comes a time when even gods must die.

I think I was in the 3rd grade when the front page of Malayala Manorama (yes, that one) carried the news of Superman being killed off in the comics. Years later I read the landmark The Death of Superman, World Without a Superman, and the Return of Superman comic titles and unlike some people I know didn’t get too emotional but still found the story arc very engrossing. Cheesy but engrossing.

Now, the same (more or less) story has been updated for the current generation (considering short attention spans) as an animated film. Superman: Doomsday follows the events leading to the epic battle between the inter galactic destroyer, Doomsday and our boy blue; and the aftermath.

Comic book purists will be distressed to learn that the plot is drastically different from the books; the only similarity being that Superman dies (sort of) and then later, returns. Lex Luthor unwittingly unleashes Doomsday who/what due to the lack of any cognitive function whatsoever runs amok through Metrolopolis leaving scores dead. Superman tries in vain to stop the rampage and gets beaten up like never before. A 15 minute fight sequence leads to the mother of all Coriolis Effects killing both destroyer and savior (again, sort of) in the process. Metropolis mourns. Lois Lane mourns. Martha Kent mourns.

The next act was pretty weak, with Lex Luthor going bizarrely depressed. In a fit of madness, he clones Superman. The new Superman however while retaining all the powers of the original Man of Steel, has a twisted sense of morality. Plot wise, the rest of the film doesn’t live up to the amazing first act but then again I wasn’t totally disappointed.

The animation is outstanding and the fight sequences are breathtaking. However, there is a lot of blood and a number of on screen deaths which elevates the proceedings to a certain extent; it’s not a children’s cartoon anymore. People die; some are crushed to death while others perish in explosions and one particular gentleman’s skull is crushed by Doomsday.

The voice acting is terrific and I was impressed by Adam Baldwin’s portrayal of Superman. My major complaint was/is that the film was too short and that too much was crammed in. But then again, I’m 23 years old and these things shouldn’t matter right? Right?

Wrong.

7.5/10