10/10/10

I have no truck with Gregorian calendar!

It’s the tenth of the tenth 2010. Oh wow.

I have to say I find this rather boring. I mean, we’ve had the 1st of the 1st 2001, the 2nd of the 2nd 2002, the 3rd of the 3rd 2003 and so one, and no one made a fuss about them (well, apart from 1/1/1 obviously, and some religious types got upset on 6/6/6). And we’re going to be getting the 11th of the 11th 2011 and the 12th of the 12th 2012 (assuming the Mayans haven’t come back and eaten us or something). I don’t regard any of these as being at all interesting, with the exception of 12/12/12 which is only interesting because it’s the last one.

So get back to me in 2 years, 2 month and 2 days. Then I might be interested.

Maintenance

Just a note to say that while the new incarnation of the Wyrmlog is now pretty much complete, there are still some maintenance tasks that need to be done…

  • Old posts containing special characters tend to have gotten broken in the transfer – I’m fixing these as I find them.
  • Some old posts don’t seem to have transferred at all. I’ll need to go and compare the databases to sort this one out.
  • I’m slowly moving entries out of the “Old and Uncategorised” category into more appropriate ones.
  • Lists are poking out the side of the page.
  • A few other styling issues.

I’ll keep plugging away at these. It’ll all be over by Christmas!

Moundsbar Updates

There are limits to what you can do with Higgins.

Exciting news from the world of linguistics. Apparently speakers of Koro have finally been located in (of all places) India!

Koro of course is one of the Moundsbar languages, as extensively researched by Metalleus. To quote from his classic essay Moundsbar Connections.

Turning to Moundsbar, there are at least three languages related to it, Aro, Sorno and Koro. Aro is spoken by a few hundred souls in an enclave in the “Fan” district of Richmond, Virginia; Sorno has been extinct since the third century but was spoken on Guam and Saipan in the last years of the Roman Empire, though you would never know it from Roman history; no speakers of Koro have been located but a Koro language must be hypothesized to account for certain telegrams received through the years by the Moundsbarians which they were unable to read.

It now appears that these telegrams were sent from the East Kameng district of Arunchal Pradesh in India. Take that Higgins!

As the great Metalleus himself once said, in these seas of ignorance, science splashes on.

That’s better…

OK, my blog is now starting to look more like I want it to. Need to get that header sorted out, and rearrange the sidebar a bit, then I might finally be satisfied.

In my perambulations around the net the other day I stumbled over this quite remarkable page –The Neanderthal Theory of Autism. It’s a page outlining a theory that Autistic spectrum disorders are actually the legacy of breeding between modern humans and Neandertals in prehistoric Europe, and that the symptoms of autism are actually Neandertal traits.

It’s an interesting idea and there’s some interesting evidence in there (the much higher rate of autism in European as opposed to African populations for instance) but there’s also a lot of absolute fruit-loopery of the highest order dressed up in the garb of science.

The basic methodology seems to work like this…

1) Neandertals may have done things this way
2) Some Autistics do things this other way
3) The first way and the second way are kind of similar
4) Therefore Autistics must be Neandertals! It all fits!

For instance, this piece of crystal clear logic…

Most of the finds of Neanderthals are from caves. It’s possible that Neanderthals spent a lot of time in caves, or maybe they hibernated there during winter. Autistics have a fascination for caves. Many autistics are afraid of the sound of a motor-bike. A motor-bike sounds similar to a bear. It is possible that the instintive (sic) reaction of autistics when they hear the sound of a motor-bike triggers an ancient fear for cave-bears.

Uhhhh…. OK, let’s look at this bit by bit. Yes, most Neandertal finds do come from caves, but this has less to do with the habits of Neandertals and more to do with the fact that caves are very good at preserving old bones, so that’s where we tend to look for them. I mean sure, Neandertals may have been hanging out in caves all the time, but you can’t build a hypothesis around the fact that we’ve gotten very good at narrowing down our search for archaeology over the last 200 years.

Autistics have a fascination for caves“. We do?! No one told me this!? I shall have to start looking for a cave to be fascinated by right away!!! Honestly…

Motor-bikes, well, yes, the sound of a motor cycle does freak me out a bit, particularly if it comes tearing around a corner at full roar without any warning. But that’s not because it sounds like a bear, it’s because it’s a loud, sudden noise. Autistics don’t like loud sudden noises of any kind, be they engines, thunder, gunshots or – yes I suppose – cave bears. You might as well argue that Autistics are scared of the sound of motor cycles because the people who ride them tend to be large and hairy, and hence resemble cave bears.

The entire work is full of this kind of stuff. Particularly annoying (or laughable, depending on how you look at it) is the chain of supposition which will state tentatively that Neandertals might have behaved in a certain way, or might have had a certain trait, and then roll on into the next sentence on the confident assumption that they definitely did. That’s not science, that’s wish fulfilment.

So yes, an interesting theory, but let’s try and find some real evidence to back it up before we go riding off into the sunset clinging to the fur of a mammoth (which is apparently why Autistics like climbing over things…)

Sheeze!

The Social Singularity

Why I will never have a Facebook account.

Hmmm, this is obviously the year of draws. A draw in the federal election, and now a draw in the AFL grand final. They’re going to replay it next Saturday, which is frankly hilarious. Call it schadenfreude, but the idea of all those fanatical footy fans moving heaven and earth to get tickets to the grand final and booking flights to Melbourne and so forth, only to have to do it all over again in a week’s time – well it has me cackling like a loon.

I’m a bad, bad man ;D

Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about Facebook.

Barely a week goes by these days without someone asking me if I’m on Facebook. Now in my experience when someone asks you if you’re on Facebook, they don’t actually mean “are you on Facebook?” they mean “can you add me to your friends and if not why do you hate me?” – because when I tell them that no, I’m not on Facebook they get a very confused look on their faces, as if they’ve asked what my blood type is and I’ve told them that I don’t actually have any blood.

My reasons for avoiding Facebook are threefold, and I figured I’d explain them here in the hopes that people might stop regarding me as some kind of weird, alien, untrustworthy, internet communist.

Privacy: Facebook has an absolutely appalling record when it comes to respecting user privacy. Historically they’ve tended to regard any information you put up on your Facebook account as their own property, to do with as they like. Public scrutiny has forced them to clean up their act a bit but I still wouldn’t trust them with a Subway order, let alone intimate details of my personal life.

Call me paranoid if you like, but I work in the internet industry and thus perhaps have a better viewpoint of just how bad privacy abuse can get. My details are mine, and I’m not releasing them to anyone without a really good reason. Handing them over to a bunch of privacy-happy clowns like Facebook just so I can post messages on a “wall” is simply not going to happen.

The Social Singularity: I’m the first to admit that I’m not the most social of creatures. I have a pretty small group of people I count as friends, and a somewhat larger group of people I consider acquaintances. If I sat down and did the maths the total of both groups would probably come in under 30. This is a figure I’m perfectly happy with – after all, my friendship is so awesome that it needs to be carefully rationed out ;D

Facebook is not built like this. Facebook divides the world into two groups – Friends, and people who you haven’t friended yet. Anyone who’s a Friend gets  to see everything you do, with no way to filter information based on how much of a friend you actually consider them.

(OK, from reading Lamebook I believe there’s some kind of private message system, but I really can’t be bothered looking up the details)

Add to this the fact that rejecting a friend request on Facebook has become the new social faux-pas. Your Boss, your Aunt, that homeless guy down at the supermarket, any of them can look you up and send a friend request. You can reject it – and have to go through a painful litany of excuses the next time you see them – or accept it, and have them reading every detail of your social life. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

Facebook collapses your entire social circle into a singularity. Everyone you know suddenly has the highest level of access to your personal life. That is not something I’m ever going to get on board with.

Contrarism: I admit it, I’m a contrarist. If everyone is carrying on about how great something is, I’ll be the curmudgeon in the corner refusing to join in just on general principles. This is just the way I am, deal ;D

So yes. I don’t have a Facebook account, and do not plan to obtain one at any point. So stop sending me those damn invites.

Meme Me

Office Shenanigans

A conversation in the office today..

Coworker: (in relation to some ugly concrete panels at Esplanade railway station) What are they for?

Me: What’s it for? What’s it mean?

Coworker: Magnets! How do they work?

Me: Double rainbow!

Coworker 2: I’m on a horse.

It’s a wonder we get anything done at all.

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