Spore: Evolutionary Propaganda?

 Science  No Responses »
Sep 102008
 

First I laughed, and then I thought “well good” when I heard that some Creationalists are complaining about a game that supposedly pushes the theory of evolution down kids throats. See http://antispore.com (don’t send abuse – being brainwashed and dumb doesn’t mean you deserve abuse).

Given that Spore has a human pushing the buttons to control the “evolution” of creatures in Spores, it seems somewhat imaginative to claim that it represents evolution. But perhaps it is close enough after all a simulation of “proper” evolution would be a little hard to call a game and would probably be so slow as to be pretty boring to watch.

Even if it does work as propaganda for the theory of evolution, it is pushing a theory that is accepted by every serious biological scientist out there. Creationlists like to claim that evolution is just a theory (and God’s creation is fact because it was written down in the Bible), but whilst the theory of evolution has not been proved, it does fit the available facts.

In fact evolution cannot be proved … scientific theories are never proved; merely rejected when they cannot predict observations. Currently evolution is a validated theory.

Evolution has lasted for almost 150 years which is an astonishingly long time for a scientific theory to last. It has of course changed in that time through minor improvements, but nobody has discovered something and gone “Oh dear! This knocks evolution on the head; time for something else.”. If you think of the changes in our understanding of the biological world since 1859, the fact that evolution is still accepted (by scientists) is quite remarkable.

If you think evolution is wrong, you don’t understand it. Or worse you won’t accept clear facts because they conflict with your view of the world.

Max Mosley Is Innocent

 Politics  No Responses »
Jul 242008
 

Or something like that.

To be more precise he has won his case against the “News of the World” for invasion of privacy.

The interesting thing about this decision despite the fact that it is not a landmark decision (previous court cases claiming invasion of privacy have been won in the UK), is that the complaints of journalists about it. They claim that the defacto “privacy law” that this is pointing to will undermine serious investigative journalism.

It may do.

But the media industry has long known that the actions of the muckrakers and pornographers of the gutter press is hugely unpopular with the thinking public. They have long had means of controlling themselves through an industry body, and have failed to control the seamier side of so-called journalism. State control of news media is abhorrent, but a lack of effective self-regulation will lead to that.

Of course the public has to take some of the blame here too. We need to stop buying newspapers whose principle content involves unwarranted invasions of privacy. Whilst many (including myself) don’t think much of Max Mosley’s actions in his private life, it should remain his personal business unless he is up to something that is illegal or has a significant impact on his public work.

Boycott the gutter press!

iPhone: Changing The Root Password

 Computing  1 Response »
Jul 192008
 

I have just changed the root password on my iPhone from the default (really dumb of Apple to give every iPhone the same root password; it would not be much work to set the default root password from the IMEI or something). Before doing so I googled for appropriate instructions.

Nothing wrong with the technical side of the instructions out there, but none I read made a point of what I would consider basic safety for dealing with changing the root password on a Unix machine. Keep a session open in case things go wrong!

My own instructions for doing the change went along the lines of :-

  1. Open two terminals
  2. Create a new password hash with openssl passwd -crypt -salt "XX" "xyzzy" (obviously change the salt (“XX”) to two characters of your choice, and pick a better password than “xyzzy”!). Keep the output stashed somewhere safe.
  3. In both terminals ssh to the iPhone (ssh root@iphone).
  4. Copy the file /etc/master.passwd to a safe copy /etc/master.passwd.original
  5. Edit /etc/master.passwd and put the stashed has into the second field of root’s entry.
  6. Now exit from the ssh session in one window and try to reconnect with the new password.

If things have gone wrong you will have an open session available to fix things (cp /etc/master.passwd.original /etc/master.passwd would be worth trying) whereas without you are kind of stuck.

The River Avon – Where The Name Comes From

 History, Humour  No Responses »
Jun 222008
 

I’ve always been interested in the origins of landscape words … Rithe, Bourne, etc. In Britain, there are a fair number of rivers called the “Avon” and I used to idly spend some time wondering where that name came from. The origins are quite amusing for someone like me.

It so happens that the Welsh word for river is “Afon” and I used to wonder if the similarity to “Avon” was due to some sort of miscommunication between the native Brythonic population and incoming Saxons. It turns out that I was not the only one to think so.

So all the rivers called Avon are really named “River River”. One can imaging how this might occur :-

Saxon: “So, native what is this river called ?” (in Old English)

Native: “It’s a river you dumb Saxon ox” (in proto-Welsh)

Saxon: “Avon? That’s a funny name, but I guess I can remember it” (OE)

Native: “Yes, a river with water in it”

Of course the real reason may have been that the Brythonic population didn’t want to give too much information away that would help the Saxons militarily. And of course the misunderstanding (or misleading answers) means we have lost the original names for the rivers in question.

The Death Sentence

 Politics  1 Response »
Apr 272008
 

I have been reading a book that has renewed my interest in the use of the death sentence in various countries in the world. Not a great book by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been thinking about the use of the death sentence for many years.

After all I live in a country that refuses to use the death sentence and has for many years. Despite the fact that re-introducing the death sentence would be quite popular with the general population. Politicians have taken a moral stand that the death sentence is wrong no matter how popular it may be. Seeing politicians take a moral stand is something that by itself is quite unusual and something to be encouraged.

There are many good reasons why the death sentence can be thought of as wrong; there are even a few good reasons why the death sentence can be though of as fully justified. This post is about just one overpowering reason why it is wrong to impose the death sentence.

If it can be wrong for one man (or woman) to kill another on their own, why is any less wrong for a gang of people to kill another ? It may be argued that the state is not just some gang, but it is still a collection of men and women acting on behalf of a society. Each one of those individuals is prohibited from killing, but as a whole they are not ?

If it is wrong for an individual to kill another individual, then it is wrong for the state to kill any individual

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