Voting was well, dull.  Most of the slots were “Pick 8 people to be associate vizier to the regional viceroy” or whatever term the Republican Party uses as go-fors between its legates and guls and the Vorta (providing further proof that Mitt Romney is not only an ideological changling but also a Founder, how else does he keep that glow?)

Anyway, once those Hobson’s Choices were made, there were officers where no one was running.  So, in the interest of exercising the most voting I could I wrote in a number of my regular readers for various offices in the Republican party.  Mykie, I wish you good luck as “Representer for Local District 438” and hope Rob doesn’t mind being the state bursar.

Voting was well, dull.  Most of the slots were “Pick 8 people to be associate vizier to the regional viceroy” or whatever term the Republican Party uses as go-fors between its legates and guls and the Vorta (providing further proof that Mitt Romney is not only an ideological changling but also a Founder, how else does he keep that glow?)

Anyway, once those Hobson’s Choices were made, there were officers where no one was running.  So, in the interest of exercising the most voting I could I wrote in a number of my regular readers for various offices in the Republican party.  Mykie, I wish you good luck as “Representer for Local District 438” and hope Rob doesn’t mind being the state bursar.

From CIS 1055, Last Test:

Me: I think the test was the same as last year’s.
Instructor:  The department makes a new exam each semester, this semester you guys had to do stuff for a bowling team.
Me: The cross over was a bit rough.  If it was bowling, then why did we have to calculate the batting average for a team called the Temple Sluggers?

If you don’t look at the comments section, you may have missed this:

Um, hi. This is Drew VandenDries, ex-owner of the ipod you purchased off of ebay. I am not in any way interested in getting the ipod back or anything, but I would like to know the person that you purchased it from off of ebay if you are willing to share the information. My email addresss should be attached to this profile, and I would like to start a dialogue if possible. Thank you, Drew

Drew,  I’ve looked through ebay and it’s only letting me look back 60 days. I’m going to look through and see what I can find and contact eBay should I need to.  I’d love to hear the story of how you found me and would very much like that response as a comment.

In CIS 1055 we’ve been listening to presentations about modern topics in computing and these are the choice bits for your consumption:

  • Students often collaborate with pages called wikipedias.
  • The internet is a democratic democracy
  • In web 1.0, you could only get information from 1 source, making web 2.0 unbiased
  • Advertising in Web 1.0 was done with a DoubleClick
  • Web 2.0 is more dependent on the internet than web 1.0
  • Linux has slower audio than most other OSs
  • Posting bandwidth to the podcast can be expensive
  • Podcasting has replaced the needs for schools
  • Modern monitors can display 1024 by 768 megapixels
  • RSS feeds are often collected by news alligators

The final coup de gras of content was committed by a group playing the “When you wish upon a weinstein” song from Family Guy.

In CIS 1055 we’ve been listening to presentations about modern topics in computing and these are the choice bits for your consumption:

  • Students often collaborate with pages called wikipedias.
  • The internet is a democratic democracy
  • In web 1.0, you could only get information from 1 source, making web 2.0 unbiased
  • Advertising in Web 1.0 was done with a DoubleClick
  • Web 2.0 is more dependent on the internet than web 1.0
  • Linux has slower audio than most other OSs
  • Posting bandwidth to the podcast can be expensive
  • Podcasting has replaced the needs for schools
  • Modern monitors can display 1024 by 768 megapixels
  • RSS feeds are often collected by news alligators

The final coup de gras of content was committed by a group playing the “When you wish upon a weinstein” song from Family Guy.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was both better and worse than I anticipated and I took copious notes and jottings during the film filling 6 index cards, compared to my normal 1 for a given film.

  • Great music.  Few docudramas, infotainment pieces, etc have such a well done score.  I was thrown off by the Orchestral version of All Along the Watchtower, but I think it was well done.
  • Opening scene proved German time travel as people’s names appeared onBerlin wall.
  • Film equates act of questioning with scientific advancement.
  • Fails to produce instance where evolution’s explanations fail.
  • Repeatedly calling evolutionary biology “Darwinism” is a thinly veiled attempt at bringing out specter of idolotry and creating a straw man.  Pin evolution on Darwin, knock down Darwin and thus knock down evolution. Foolish.
  • Articles were claimed not to be allowed for peer review.  This is a misinterpretation of peer review where publishers act as referees and/or gatekeepers.  That’s the entire point.
  • Reference to academia as “scientism gulag”was cute
  • Makes reference to Einstein throwing out Newton where Einstein merely added exactness and clarity in some cases eg transit of Mercury.
  • Film cites that repression is systemic which implies a central authority, none given
  • Christopher Hitchens cited as scientist
  • Argument from authority, frequently calls those fired “obviously smart” but only in case of Guillermo Gonzalez (I think that was the name) was an example of previous work given.
  • PhDs mentioned but were not always in pertinent fields
  • The Tim Burtonesque DNA scene was delightful
  • Evolution attacked for not having rigor when compared to physics when compared to math.  Math isn’t a science and plays by different rules of proof.  Math has a possible level of proof much higher than in science which only has falsifiability and partial proof by partial exhaustion.
  • Saturn 5 as cell, Saturn 5 wasn’t terribly complicated.
  • Quote from cartoon Richard Dawkins “You stupid machine, I hate you”.
  • Misdefinition of information: Claims natural selection reduces information when in fact it reduces (in some cases) variance.  Information is useful knowledge from data.  Natural selection essentially acts as a pattern sift.  Information theory poorly explained.
  • Panspermia equated with aliens (which is intelligent design, derf) instead of thinking of comets simply providing some of the amino acids or crystalline structures needed
  • Statement made that appriciation of cell only began with our recent work in nano technology despite nanotech working on levels significantly smaller than the cell
  • Notion of how theory becomes accepted through media-courts-peers absolutely ludicrous
  • Intelligent Design as political correctness
  • Comparison to Poland poor as Poland has no real ID forces
  • Newton listed as “early modern scientist”
  • Argument from consequences listed as religious implications of evolution
  • Evolution as negating free will not explained
  • “Deconversion to science” sets up notion of progress towards religion
  • Ignores Laplace and stability of solar system as example which no God is required
  • Notion that science lacks transendental values is odd.  Science requires belief that universe is both predictable and discoverable and an implicit spirit of cooperation and truth
  • Evolution stated effectively as happening at individual level despite fact that it occurs on the species level
  • Quote mining of Darwin on the disabled
  • Missed science of Nazis ignored hybrid vigor and problems of “pure breeds”
  • Planned parenthood connection to eugenics is an argument from origin and doesn’t apply to current incarnation
  • Science as method of rationalization, misses that this mostly occurs with the social sciences
  • Failure of ID to make a priori predictions
  • “truth crushed earth will rise again” not sure what that was from
  • No examples of where debate betwain ID and evo could occur

Ryan Griff recently completed an Eagle project of collecting soccer equipment and was featured under the headline “Eagle Scout Scores”.  That should help recruitment and advancement.

Sadly, they fixed the headline in the online edition to “Eagle Scout Scores Multiple Goals” which is much harder to twist to an innuendo.

Robert Kopa-something-or-other from my Troop had his Eagle Court of Honor yesterday and the normal collection of delegates from state and local government were present, one being the attaché to Dennis O’Brien, the PA Speaker of the House. He talked about how he didn’t know what to say and used the following amazing quote to explain what Eagle meant to him.

“Two hundred years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt said the following ‘Do not foul, do not flinch’, and this Eagle hasn’t.”

Theodore Roosevelt running two hundred years ago, wow. Considering he was president from 1901 to 1908 that would mean he had a 93 year campaign, and I thought Reagan had a long campaign time.

I finally emptied out my pick-up of the things I collected during the camporee, one of which was a red nalgene bottle filled with that I was told was “bad raspberry iced tea”.  I emptied out the jug into the sink and was taken aback by the strength of the wave of stench coming from what I’m pretty sure was a 50/50 mixture of vodka and grapefruit juice.  I was surprised for two reasons:

  1. Why would a Scout want to get shitfaced during a camporee?
  2. Who actually likes the taste of grapefruit juice?