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Archive: March 29, 2020

welcome to the club

Sunday,  03/29/20  11:01 PM

 

love this

 

 

social distancing

Sunday,  03/29/20  11:05 PM

And so now we are all "sheltering in place" and "social distancing" from each other.  Wow, what a month, what a time!

It's been quite a week for my company Teladoc (InTouch Health) too; the busiest time ever, as physicians and patients shift to telehealth to keep their own distance.  So while we're all working from home, we're all working 24x7 too.  So be it.

I *was* able to escape for a couple of bike rides this weekend, yay, around Lake Arrowhead and Lake Isabella.  You have to escape your four walls sometime...

And while most everyone is shut down, many things are happening...


From Politico: Coronavirus will change the world permanently.  Thirty-four big thinkers predict how...  some seem almost too obvious, and some seem completely wrong, but it's a thought-provoking list. 

As regards the title thesis, sure, the world will change, but perhaps not as much as we might think.  I remember thinking the same thing after 9/11.

Global warming in a few charts.  I can't do them justice here, please click through, but the punchline is ... nope, not much global warming is actually happening.  "Unfortunately for the alarmists, enough time has now gone by that we can say, definitively, that the models are wrong.

Quantum Frontiers: the ground space of babel.  Any blog post that begins "Librarians are committing suicide" is going to get your attention, but this one is going to hold it, too.  I'm still not sure the Quantum Computer emperor is wearing any clothes, but it sure makes for some weird math. 


NASA: Planetary protection and the moons of Mars.  We are sending a spacecraft to return samples from Phobos and Deimos, and we must make sure we don't contaminate them in the process. 


From the always thought-provoking Razib Kahn: The general social complexity factor is a thing.  Well then.  Another great mind expansion in which I understand about 10% but sense there is something here I want to understand better


Kottke: the exponential domino chain reaction.  Just think, one simple blog post could be that little domino... 

 

 
 

Archive: March 29, 2019

 

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Archive: March 29, 2016

Brrr

Tuesday,  03/29/16  11:29 PM

Spring!  Brrr...  Good thing I got our Nest working.  (A simple matter of a blown fuse, buried deep within the HVAC unit...)  Meanwhile, it's all happening...

What we know about the Tesla Model 3 (due to be unveiled Thursday).  A better headline would be, what we don't know... since we don't know much.  One of the more interesting questions is whether Model 3 owners can use the Tesla Supercharger Network (most likely, yes) and whether they'll have to pay when they do (most likely, yes). 

The BMW Isetta (IZA) is being resurrected as an electronic vehicle.  Awesome!  My Mom owned an IZA as her first car, back when I was born; teeny, three wheels, door in the front ... what's not to love? 

Okay:  Republicans better pay attention to Bernie.  If it weren't for Donald Trump, the big story in this election cycle would be Bernie Sanders' increasingly successful challenge to Hillary Clinton.  Maybe it will be Trump vs Sanders? 

4,000 people have signed a petition to allow guns inside the arena at the Republican National Convention.  Why not? 

Five hard questions facing Oculus Rift.  Yeah, it's too expensive, and yeah, you have to wear a [tethered] headset*, and yeah, you need a powerful desktop to run it.  But yeah, it is going to stimulate a lot of VR content, and get the chicken-and-egg hardware-and-content ball rolling... 

* This picture is cute but one thing it gets crucially wrong; when wearing an Oculus, you can't see, and others cannot see you.

Bitcoin rival Ethereum climbed 1,000% in 3 months, crossing $1B in value.  The interesting thing about Ethereum is that it features a more powerful embedded transaction set which is more usable for Smart Contracts.  Whether that will cause it to "tip" remains to be seen ... I'm betting, no. 

Powerful things come in tiny packages, and this mini-Linux computer for $39 proves it.  It's so cute! 

Ed Driscoll has Gone to Texas (from Milpitas, California).  "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."  

California sucks, but it *is* better than every other place :)  Especially because it is so nice and ... warm.  Brrr... 

 
 

Archive: March 29, 2015

 

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Archive: March 28, 2010

week of 3/22, redux

Sunday,  03/28/10  09:50 AM

And so I am back from a week in Washington DC, an amazingly busy and productive week attending the U.S. and Canadian Association of Pathologists annual conference, squeezing in a couple of DICOM meetings, a visit to the National Cathedral, a visit to the National Zoo, and an unbelievable celebration dinner at which a magnum of 1996 Araujo Eisele was consumed which could possibly be the best wine I have ever had...

(and not to mention back from riding a double century yesterday)

...but while all that was happening for me, all this was happening for you:

Well, the health care reform bill was signed (aka insurance reform), so What Happens Now

My little city of Westlake Village has applied for Google's Fiber for Communities program; the entry included this video to make the case: Why the City of Westlake Village is the right choice for Google's Fiber for Communities project.  Yes, that is Westlake Major Pro Tem Ned Davis dressed as The Flash, alongside current Major Mark Rutherford.  Pretty cool - I hope we are selected! 

Bringing improved support for Flash to Google Chrome.  And so we have Apple vs Google playing out in Flash support too.  No way Apple are going to support Flash on iDevices, but I guess Flash will be everywhere else.  Question is will it matter? 

Hendrik Hertzberg: Some Nukes (making the case for nuclear power)...  Hendrik is an Obama apologist and I often disagree with him, but in this instance he is dead on.  Let's hope we get some change on this issue. 

As you know I love Alex Ross, the New Yorker's music critic, and as another example why I offer Battle of the Bands, his column in the March 22 issue.  "In the space of thirty-one days, from the end of January to the beginning of March, Carnegie Hall held an unofficial orchestral Olympics, presenting thirteen concerts by symphonic ensembles from six states and three foreign countries...  The impulse to pit one orchestra against another is as regrettable as it is irresistible."  I swear I am becoming a classical music (and opera) fan simply by reading Alex' columns ;) 

Tim (XML) Bray is a Sun employee who didn't want to get absorbed into Oracle and so has joined Google, he will be blogging about it from the inside.  A preliminary assessment: Life at Google

Way cool: the virgin flight of Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise.  This was a "captive carry", meaning the spaceship itself didn't fly, except as a passenger of WhiteKnightTwo, it's mother ship, but still it was another forward step along the long road to space travel.  Onward! 

How cool would it be to be Richard Branson, who is wealthy enough and energetic enough to start stuff like this?  Really cool :)

The story of bottled water.  Entirely a marketing concept, as most tap water is at least as good (if not better) than bottled water, especially in the United States.  Ironically the people most likely to drink it are "greens" who would be horrified if they understood the environmental impact of bottled water vs ordinary tap water.  Clean plentiful running water is one of the miracles of our civilization. 

With Apple's iPad imminent, a great cluster of articles from Wired: How the Tablet will Change the World.  The main article is great, as is all the side takes; my favorite was Marshall McLuhan's...  On a meta level it is interesting how readily Wired has embraced the tablet as a potential delivery channel, and yet Wired remains a magazine with value as a magazine; although their ads are down I could seem them lasting a lot longer in paper form than, say, Time. 

Pretty nice point from Jeff Atwood: the opposite of Fitt's Law.  It isn't only important to make things users do all the time easy, you want to make things users hardly ever do hard. 

This looks amazingly cool: Photoshop CS5's new Content-Aware Fill.  I use the world's oldest version of Photoshop (v6, from ahem 2001), perhaps *finally* I have a reason to upgrade.  [ via Slashdot

The Tivo Premiere makes its debut, and is reviewed by Engadget.  In the kiss of death department, note this: "Let's talk about that lag for a moment, since it's inescapable: it feels like the entire UI reloads every time you do anything."  Sigh.  A sluggish UI will kill a consumer product faster than anything. 

From Technology Review: the Slow Rise of the Robot Surgeon.  "Robot-driven procedures are popular, but surgeons say the technology isn't evolving quickly enough."  That's certainly one point of view, from another, a slow steady rise is preferable to fast growth followed by pullback when there are problems.  Robotic surgery has tremendous value - my daughter Megan had open heart surgery to repair an Atrial Septal Defect when she was four, done by a surgeon with a robotic arm, and it was incredibly successful - but the challenges are significant, too... 

I've posted this before (I think), but it bears re-posting: a graphic which shows all the aircraft carriers in the world.  You can click through for an interactive enlargement - please do - but the thumbnail makes the essential point, the U.S. has twice as many carriers as the rest of the world combined, and bigger and better ones, too...  no other country comes close.  Russia has one, and the U.K. four [smaller] ones.  When you factor in our edge in the planes which fly off these carriers and the ammo they carry, our superiority is amazing. 

Well this is cool: Boonen to ride Tour of California.  Wow, with Cancellara in the mix, looks like Levi will have some serious challengers this year...  I can't wait! 

Steve Almond: Why it's okay to love Styx.  "They've been slagged as embarrassing, over-earnest, everything wrong with '70s music.  Forget that: This band rules."  Indeed, and if you aren't enjoying them, it just means you aren't listening to them loud enough :) 

ZooBorns of the week: thermonuclear otter pups.  ("They are so lethally cute, we have dubbed them the Thermonuclear Otter Triplets.")

 

 

the unGooglable man (NY 3/22/10)

Sunday,  03/28/10  10:28 AM


...I love it...

(I am the opposite, a uniquely Googlable man, thanks to a sufficiently unusual name :)

 

Solvang Double Century, x3: in 11:53 elapsed

Sunday,  03/28/10  11:07 AM

Yesterday I rode the Solvang Double Century, hard upon my return from Washington DC the day before, and I must tell you I had a great ride.  It was a spectacular day, Spring has sprung, and I managed to break 12 hours elapsed for a double for the first time (11:53!).  Solvang isn't the world's hardest double - about 7,200' of climbing - but no double is easy.  Making this one just slightly more interesting, I broke my rear derailleur cable descending Drum Canyon at the very end, and had to ride the last ten miles in my biggest gear.

I came out of the Washington trip on a total high... and it spilled into my ride.  I loved replaying the week in my mind, all the things which happened; it was an amazing week.  Oh and I replayed the music too; when I ride I am music driven...  it was great.

Some pictures:


the route: 200 miles, 7,200' from Buelleton up to Morro Bay and back
initial climb is Foxen Canyon, final one is Drum Canyon


the peloton gets started in the early morning light


grapes sunning themselves in Foxen Canyon; beautiful!


wow, PURPLE; Spring has sprung on the road to San Luis Obispo


turnaround point in Morro Bay with the famous rock in the background
102 miles down, and it's all downhill from here :)


riding along the beach makes me happy


some amazing seaside vistas in Avilla Beach


climbing Drum Canyon, the world's worst surface
actually broke my derailleur descending the backside


one happy camper with another double under my belt
11:53 elapsed, 10:38 riding time (!)

Onward!  Next up the 260km Tour of Flanders...

 
 

Archive: March 29, 2009

Solvang Double! (in 10:38)

Sunday,  03/29/09  10:05 AM

Good morning!  I know you all eagerly scanned your feed readers this morning to find out how my ride in the Solvang Double went yesterday...  it went great.  A perfect beautiful day for riding...  rode the first 100 miles in 5:15, which would have been my best Century ever, and the entire 200 in 10:38, which is my best time for a Double.

I flirted with cramping at about 170 miles but figured out the key: salt!  I had some string cheese just as things were turning pear-shaped and felt instantly better.  Glad I now know.

Some pictures:


rolling hills East of Santa Ynez, as the sun rises...


early morning paceline


overlooking Foxen winery


at Sisquoc checkpoint, with wonderful-smelling farmland in the background
I was happier than I look :)


lots of beautiful grazing land East of Santa Maria near Bull Canyon


at the Morro Bay checkpoint, with the famous rock and wonderful little harbour


salt flats Northwest of Guadalupe


yay I made it!  two hundred miles...

I must confess I'm feeling quite pleased with myself...  I knocked 20 minutes off my time in this ride last year, and [I think] have a handle on the cramping that plagued me in the Century two weeks ago.

Next up: The Mulholland Challenge, a mere century but with 12,000' of climbing (!), in the Santa Monica mountains, and that night, the Midnight Express, a 50-mile ride in the hills above La Cañada.  Stay tuned...

 

opening day (New Yorker 3/30/09)

Sunday,  03/29/09  07:32 PM


Bruce McCall wonderfully celebrates the two new baseball stadia debuting in New York
CitiField, new home of the Mets, across the street from Shea Stadium, and
Yankee Stadium, across the street from, er, old Yankee Stadium
(a cynic might ask, recession, what recession?)

 

good housekeeping

Sunday,  03/29/09  07:41 PM

Sorry, but it’s a Sunday afternoon, and you know what that means:

<rant type=random>

Here are a few things you should do, they’re like flossing your teeth.  You know you should do it, and later when things turn ugly you realize why.

  1. Backups.  Quick, stop and think how much time you would lose if your hard drive failed, right now.  You know you need to backup your computer, so why don’t you do it?  You can do it Friday night before going to bed, and it won’t cost you but three minutes.  My own suggestions – get a 1TB USB2 drive (Fry’s has them for $150 $100) and use Acronis.  Note that in 2009 hard drives are so big and so cheap that there is no reason not to back up everything - your entire drive partition, from A to Z.  It is simpler and much easier in the event of a recovery than having to reinstall stuff.  Your time costs much more than a hard drive.
  2. Scans.  Yes you should have an antivirus / malware tool on your computer, and yes you should have it scan your entire computer weekly.  My own suggestion is Norton but YMMV.  The time and aggravation you will save in the event of a virus or malware is your own.  The latest incarnations of these tools do it in the background when your machine is “idle”, you don’t have to think about it.
  3. Logs.  The best thing you can do to avoid “stuff not working” on your computer is to religiously log everything you do to it.  I’m talking about a simple text file; put in the date and what you did.  “Applied Windows Updates”, “Installed latest ImageScope 10.1.0.73”, “Backed up entire computer with Acronis”, “Performed Norton full scan”, etc.  Keep the file on your desktop so you will remember to update it.  This helps so much in problem determination, I can’t tell you.  And since it will be part of every backup, it is perfect documentation for what is missing in the event of a restore.

</rant>

 

Sunday,  03/29/09  07:56 PM

Okay, time for a filter pass...  I've been busy doing stuff, ya know?  First there was social stuff, and then riding (which took all of yesterday :) and today there was the all-important basketball watching (and the accompanying all-important basketball eating... one of the joys of losing 5lbs. in a single day's ride :).  Away we go...

Have you seen the new Microsoft ads, with "Lauren" who is looking for a new laptop?  I think they're really effective, possibly the best Microsoft ads I've seen.  (Admittedly recent competition was weak.)  The angle is price; she's looking for a laptop with a 17" screen for $1,000, and she goes into a Mac store and can't find one, and then goes to a PC store and has a big selection.  There's even a sweet dig "I guess I'm not cool enough for a Mac" which is perfect; nobody is as cool as someone who admits they aren't.  She ends up with an HP for $699.  Cult of Mac makes fun of it (and check out the commenters!), but make no mistake; this ad hits a nerve

On the other side of cool we have the new Coke Zero ads, which ask "are you as mad as a drink with real Coke taste and zero calories"?  Huh?  They have clearly been drinking too much of their own product.  Sorry but I can't bring myself to give them a link, nothing to see here, move along... 

And have you seen the Ozzie Osborne / World of Warcraft ad?  The prince of darkness rules all...  ALL ABOARD! 

TTAC's General Motors Death Watch gleefully covers Rick Wagoner's resignation.  This is symbology 101; the Obama administration [over]reacting to the uproar over the AIG bonuses.  The whole GM bailout is a mistake; they should have been allowed to go bankrupt, and their board should determine whether the management team is executing effectively.  The government has no business being in the car business.  I am really starting to hate dislike the Obama administration. 

Mark Steyn: "The Economist is the latest of the smart guys to notice that President Obama is proving strangely unlike the guy they told us he was back in late October."  Uh, yeah. 

Interesting: the Huffington Post is hiring investigative journalists.  "All of us increasingly have to look at different ways to save investigative journalism."  Pretty cool.  Of course we'll see about this: "We care about democracy, not Democrats", but they could hardly be more liberal than the MSM. 

Related: all the news that's fit to be birdcage liner.  Newspapers didn't become irrelevant because of the Internet, they became irrelevant when they stopped being news reporters and started trying to be news.

Wired thinks you are not worthy of this car.  I disagree.  I am so worthy.  The Vulca S... wow, is it beautiful.  And the interior looks fantastic. 

Who knew?  Turns out women like fast cars.  Actually, women like men who can afford expensive cars.  Not quite the same thing.  I would like to perform the experiment with a Vulca S :)

Another one bites the dust: Ann Althouse is tweeted out.  "I think I may have stopped tweeting. I'm a blogger not a tweeter."  Amen. 

The opposite of a tweeter is Bill Whittle; he and his Eject Eject Eject pieces have become my favorite long-format blogger now that Stephen Den Beste has retired.  And now he's at Pajama's Media... 

So, is 2009 the year print-on-demand goes mainstream?  I don't think so... this is a transitional technology, like arguing about whether Blu-ray or DVD-HD was going to win.  The Kindle and its brethern are the future of books, just as AppleTV and its kin are the future of movie distribution.  If we've learned anything we've learned that digital online trumps analog offline every time

This you must go and watch.  Go ahead...  Extreme sheep herding, with the baaa-studs.  Just when you thought you'd seen it all, more evidence, if any were needed, that "it all" is so much more than you thought...  [ via Gerard Vanderleun ] 

Wallace and Gromit are teaching science at the London Science museum.  Not quite worth a trip to England, but close; how cool is that? 

Tools you can use: Fiddler.  A great free tool which acts as an inline HTTP proxy and shows you all sorts of interesting stuff about your web traffic.  Perfect for debugging web applications.  You're welcome :) 

PS found out about it in MSDN magazine; this might be the first useful thing I’ve ever read there :)

Dude, where's my bike lane? - the Florida edition...  thanks Jim. 

Possibly the cutest picture of all time?  Click to verify; possibly :) 

For all of you who said you wanted more in my daily posts, thanks, and be careful what you wish for, you might get it...

 

 

Madness: Round Four

Sunday,  03/29/09  11:45 PM

And so after four rounds we have four survivors...
  • Connecticut(1) ground it out over Missouri(3) - 82-75.  UConn jumped out fast but Missouri caught them and hung tough.  Second half was continuous up and down, lots of action, and the teams played even until UConn started to pull out at the end (and Missouri missed some key baskets).  But then the Tigers almost caught them at the end in an excruciating free-throw-fest.  An entertaining game, FS=01:20.  { I have to add, as long as the foul / free-throw / inbound endgame always takes, it is much worse when it turns into foul / commercial / free-throw / commercial / inbound.  Even substituting "fast-forward-Tivo" for "commercial" it was pretty bad.  Feh. }
  • Villanova(3) buzzer beat Pittsburgh(1) - 78-76.  Pitt was outplayed for most of the 1st half, but took a 2-point lead into the locker room, and then it was a great second half, a well-played see-saw battle, ending with some unbelievable plays at the end, a coast-to-coast drive and a barely missed hail Mary at the buzzer.  Possibly The best game of the tournament so far.  FS=00:00.
  • Michigan State(2) upsets Louisville(1) - 64-52.  Got off to a slow start, with 13 points in the first 10 minutes, then turned into a pretty good game, if a little sloppy; nerves were in evidence.  The second half was better and the pace picked along with the excitement level, as Michigan State began to assert themselves.  Their confidence grew and Louisville missed shots they should make; they looked so much better against Arizona.  FS=05:00.
  • North Carolina(1) rolled over Oklahoma(2) - 72-60.  Carolina jumped out to a 13-2 lead, and never looked back.  The game ended when they held the Sooners scoreless for five minutes in the middle of the second half.  Not the greatest basketball, I must say...  FS=10:00.
Do we have to keep hearing about how great the Big East was this year?  I mean, they were great.  Now let's move on.  Mercifully the cult-of-the-coach thing was kept to a minimum, thank you CBS.  Unmercifully we were inundated with commercial breaks, thank you CBS.

At this point, with Louisville out, I'm going to pick Connecticut to go all the way.  I have it as UConn over Michigan State, Villanova over North Carolina, and the Huskies to win it all.  Amazingly my bracket is still in pretty good shape (except for UCLA winning, that is :)  Anyway next weekend we'll see how it all ends up; stay tuned...

 
 

Archive: March 29, 2008

 

Archive: March 29, 2007

 

Archive: March 29, 2006

 

Archive: March 29, 2005

 

Archive: March 29, 2004

Interfaith Inventions

Monday,  03/29/04  11:47 PM

Tonight I attended an organization meeting for Interfaith Inventions, Inc, a non-profit organization whose mission is to educate and to enrich the lives of children through interfaith camps for kids.  This organization was formed by my good friend and ex-partner Daniel Jacoby, who passed away recently after a long bout with cancer.  A group of Daniel's friends and colleagues are working hard to make Daniel's vision a reality, including a number of religious and business leaders from the Los Angeles area.

"The world is a narrow bridge, and the key thing is, never to be afraid"

I'll be writing more about Interfaith Inventions as we get further along, but in the meantime if you're interested please let me know.

 

Monday,  03/29/04  11:48 PM

The wrong issue?  The other day I wrote about the right issue, and how Democrats are making a mistake if they make Bush's handling of the war on terror a campaign issue.  (And it looks like I was right; "Despite a week of negative headlines about how his administration handled the threat of terrorism, President Bush's political position against presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry has strengthened.")  So why is Cheney attacking Kerry on taxesThat's the wrong issue.  Each side is picking on the other's strength.  Fascinating!

Speaking of Bush's vulnerability on jobs' creation (we were), the Economist ran a great article about The Reserve Army.  "The unemployment rate is, in fact, a poor measure of economic health."  In fact, a poor measure of anything, since the way it is computed is so subjective.  Nonetheless, look for this to be a BIG issue in the coming campaign.  Why?  Because it is the one issue on which Kerry can really nail Bush.

P.S. Wouldn't it be smarter for Bush just to have Condi Rice testify?  She's so smart and articulate, she'll blow everyone away.  (And blow the issue away, too.)  Whereas by having her not testify, it looks like they have something to hide.

P.P.S. The Command Post reports on military deaths and injuries in Iraq to date.  In total about 500 soldiers have been killed through hostile action.  Any deaths at all are regrettable, don't get me wrong, but that seems amazingly low.  In fact, nearly 200 of the 300,000 or so soldiers in Iraq have died from non-hostile causes (accidents and illnesses).

Victor Davis Hansen wonders: When should we stop supporting Israel?

Dalton Conley in Slate: Two is Enough.  "The U.S. government encourages families to have children, as many of them as possible.  The pro-child policies are based partly on romantic notions about mom, family, and apple pie, but they also have a rational goal:  We subsidize kids so that our next generation of workers is ready to win in the global economy.  Problem is, these two goals - more kids and better-prepared kids - are at odds.  If we really care about kids' welfare and accomplishment, the United States should scrap policies that encourage parents to have lots of children."  Amen.

Hey, this is cool!  Aviation Week's current cover story is about SpaceX.  Regular readers know this startup - from Zip2 and PayPal founder Elon Musk - is one of my favorite companies.  The article has a lot of technical detail and a good survey of the higher-priced launch vehicle competition, especially Boeing.  Very positive PR.

NewScientist reports on a robot that can "print" houses.  "A robot for 'printing' houses is to be trialled by the construction industry.  It takes instructions directly from an architect's computerized drawings and then squirts successive layers of concrete on top of one other to build up vertical walls and domed roofs."

Remember the other day I posted a note about the Airider, a hovercraft vacuum cleaner?  That picture was a cad-cam model.  Well, the company sent me an email to point out that they have the "real" model coming out this July.  See pic at right!

There's a new company called Vapore that makes cool capillary pumps.  "A revolution in liquid to vapor technology."  And the control software?  It's vaporware :)

Mark Pilgrim links Robert Read's How to be a Programmer?  I think I've linked this before, but it's worth linking again.  Really good stuff.

Have you ever run into a boat with your car?  Don't you hate when that happens?  I hope the boat was okay.  Anyway I happened to see this picture on the web, and couldn't resist posting it.  Looks like a perfect candidate for a Fark caption contest...

 

 

Understanding Engineers, Take 6

Monday,  03/29/04  11:49 PM

Today's attempt in our series to understand engineers:

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.

One said, "It was a mechanical engineer.  Just look at all the joints."

Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer.  Look at the thousands of electrical connections."

The last one said, "Actually it was a civil engineer.  Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

 
 

Archive: March 28, 2003

Lying

Friday,  03/28/03  10:03 PM

I'm a pretty calm person.  Which is not to say that I'm relaxed.  I am a ball of tension inside a calm exterior.  Generally the tension stays inside but a few things can cause leakage, which is when I get not so calm.  And the most usual thing which causes me to get not so calm is lying.

Lying is all about intent.  When you say something you know isn't true in order to influence others, you're lying.  If you say something which isn't true but you didn't know it wasn't true, that's not lying.  But if you try to influence others by passing off something you don't know is true as truth, you are lying.  Even if it subsequently turns out the thing was true.

The thing which really bothers me about politics and diplomacy is that they involve continuous lying.  There is a game.  Everyone is lying all the time.  They are either saying things which they know aren't true, or they are saying things they don't know are true.  Once you say something, it is up to everyone else to prove it isn't true.  If they can't prove it isn't true, then it counts as true.  What a wacko game!  Instead of everyone just telling the truth.

The war has really exacerbated my feelings about lying.  Each day I read tens of stories about the war (I am drawn to them like a moth to a flame).  I can't accept anything at face value.  Each story, each posting, even each photograph has to be analyzed; I have to ask, "is this true"?  The politicians, the military people, the reporters, and even bloggers like me are all spinning.  Everyone is riding the fine line between complete falsehood and "not true but not proveably false".  Disgusting.

There is an antidote for lying.  It is logic.  You start with some facts, and you reason from the facts to make more facts.  When you have a hypothesis you can test, you test it.  You are continuously searching for truth.  This is the essence of science, the core methodology.  It works great for things which are simple and static.  The laws of physics, the nature of chemical reactions, even the structures of life are all amenable to science.  It does not work great for things which are complex or dynamic, like the behavior of people.  This is why it is so tough to apply science to markets, or politics.

To deal with markets and politics and other realms involving the behavior of people, you have to rely on statistics.  It is easier to predict what 10M people will do than to predict what any one of them will do.  But even then you have only a prediction, no certainty.  Which opens to the door to opinion.  Reasonable people can and do disagree about things which are not scientifically proveable.  They can do so honestly - gathering as many facts as possible and reasoning logically - or they can do so dishonestly - selectively picking facts and spinning them to support a predetermined view.  That's lying, and I don't like it.