This is essentially Wittgenstein’s response to philosophical skepticism (on which The Matrix and similar scenarios— brains in a vat, etc.— are based). He argues that, if you trace back the chain of evidence for any empirical belief, you ultimately come not to a well-founded belief or an ill-founded one, but to an "unfounded way of acting," which is not based in belief but is the basis of it. If we want to function, we must act as if we had reliable evidence for certain things that we really don’t— as he says, "If i want the door to open, the hinges must stay put."

As someone who teaches college classes, I think the biggest consequence of this change in attitudes is not simply that kids are annoying (though they often are), but that they tend to understand themselves as paying customers entitled to a service. Specifically, they understand themselves to be paying for a degree, and my job is to make sure they get one; anything I do that hinders this (like, say, giving them a low grade for doing crappy work) is taking something from them that they’re entitled to. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard something like "But i really need to do well in this class because I’m going to law school." To which I want to respond (but don’t): "If you can’t do well in a freshman-level class without me holding your hand the entire time, then you’re sure as hell not going to law school."

Okay, wearing a pocket protector to protect your pocket is nerdy, but wearing it for looks makes you a whole different kind of nerd altogether.

It’s worth noting, though, that in this case, it was not at all hard to detect. (Click "next" under the image to see the doctored version). Really unskilled use of the rubber stamp tool.

Two recent pieces by Washington Post science writer Shankar Vedantam describe ongoing psychological research which shows that people on different sides of controversial political issues, when shown identical news reports on that topic, will both conclude that the coverage is biased against their own side. Interestingly, those who are better informed are more likely to fall into this trap, because they feel that news coverage lacks contextual information that would support their perspective. Perhaps even more striking, this tendency is actually stronger when the coverage itself is less partisan, because obviously biased reports or propaganda are easier to dismiss. As one researcher puts it, "If I think the world is black, and you think the world is white, and someone comes along and says it is gray, we will both think that person is biased." Those who are politically neutral on a given issue, in contrast, are likely to see coverage as relatively balanced, or to see the flaws and strengths of both sides.

I think that makes a lot of sense, in the abstract- let the government remain materially objective, so to speak, by neither helping nor hindering. The only problem I see with that logic is the imbalance of private vs. federal funds for scientific research of all kinds- withdrawing federal funds is almost a denial of all funding.

A recent New York Times article includes statements from a number of (anonymous) government officials who argue that the recent suspension of military aid to many countries in Africa (as well as Latin America) is undermining anti-terrorism efforts in these countries, because many do not have the military capability to fight terrorist groups on their own. The reason for the cuts is the passage in 2003 of the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, section 2007 of which states that "no United States military assistance may be provided to the government of a country that is a party to the International Criminal Court" unless that country has signed a separate agreement with the U.S. exempting our troops from prosecution in the ICC. The article also notes that China has stepped in to provide assistance and aid in our absence.

At this point I rip everything with iTunes. The vast bulk of stuff that I have for which i don’t own CDs is from either Mp3.com, when it was still around, or epitonic.com, which still is.

Recently in Sao Paulo, Brazil – the largest city in the southern hemisphere and Brazil’s economic capital – a wave of violence reportedly organized by one of the country’s largest gangs over the movement of several of their members to high-security facilities resulted in the deaths of over 150 people. The gang’s leaders organized the violence from prison using cell phones, which of course they’re not supposed to have.

I’m not familiar with the comments on Omninerd that you’re talking about, but no, I don’t think it matters at all which religious group we’re talking about. It’s neither more nor less legitimate to paint all Christians with the same brush than it is all Muslims. I think that some people in America feel free to attack Christianity because it’s familiar, it’s "our" religion, while at the same time arguing that we must withold judgment on Islam because it’s "foreign," it’s "their" religion. In a way I see the logic, but I think that’s a false dichotomy that just makes the problem worse. If we could stop seeing Islam as unalterably alien (there are a whole lot of Muslims in America, after all), we might be able to have a more productive dialogue. All of which is beside the point anyway; we were talking about freedom of speech and I will defend the right of these "conservative" bloggers to say what they’ve said just as strongly as I’ll defend the right of "liberal" bloggers to say their piece, whether or not it offends me.

I have several points, not all of which relate specifically to this comment, but to the overall conversation. My response to the Google post in general comes last.

First, on FOX’s slant, I’d refer everbody to this study by the progam on international policy attitudes, which shows that people who get most of their news from FOX are significantly more likely to have certain misperceptions about the war in Iraq than those who watch CNN, and far more likely than those who get most of their news from NPR or PBS. Now, there are almost certainly other factors involved there, but I do think the results say something about FOX. You might be right about their actual news coverage, as distinguished from their punditry, but really I think the key problem with the channel is precisely that coverage makes up a very small part of what they broadcast, and punditry (e.g. Hannity or O’Reily) makes up the lion’s share.

Now TruthDig is calling the story "almost positively false" and the newspaper that originally reported it notes that Iran denies the reports. However, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is still taking it seriously. We’ll have to keep an eye on this and see what happens.

I understand the point about wanting to be able to use specific applications, but..

Running windows on a Mac is like buying a new car, taking out the engine and hooking up pedals. I guess that’s fine if you want the excercise or something, but I’d rather get where I’m going in speed and comfort most of the time.