Geek at Play

The false evolution debate is one thing I have a hard time ignoring. I call it “false” because there really is no debate: evolution happened. Yet there are people out there that continue to make a lot of noise and push a disturbing pseudo-scientific religious agenda in order to protect their theologically and intellectually bankrupt world views. The depth of their misunderstanding of both science and religion is often staggering to me. They truly don’t understand either and make some of the most stunning logical errors I’ve ever seen.

But now it’s gone too far. I was raised in a Christian Reformed Church by loving parents and a supportive community. I then attended Calvin College, named for one of the key figures in the denomination’s theological history, John Calvin. So old Johnny has some significance in my history. Earlier this week I noticed that the morons at Answers in Genesis have cited the book art in Calvin’s commentary on Genesis as proof that man walked the earth with dinosaurs (they didn’t). That’s right, they claim an ornate drawing as scientific proof to contradict the massive amounts of hard evidence in the fossil record. The author is clearly delusional.

I can’t understand how a person could write about dragons without understanding that they have been a part of mythic lore for centuries? How could he be so ignorant of the mundane explanation for their appearance (storytellers often create bigger scarier versions of real things we’re already scared of as villains)? And how could assert that a lovely drawing is anything more than it is? All this does is show ignorance.

Calvin was a smart guy trying to answer difficult theological questions. Leave him out of your shallow, ignorant, lazy ravings.

Alright, it’s been far too long since my last TAM6 post, and I never wrapped things up. I really enjoyed my time in Vegas, although I didn’t meet as many people as I had hoped. I chatted with quite a few, but never really connected with them. I also found that the “lunatic fringe” exists among skeptics just as with any other group. Every once in a while I’d run into people that were a little too certain that they had it all figured out and that skepticism and science were the only way to view the world, “damn the rest.” That’s just silly and condescending. The majority, however, were fun and smart people.

The speakers were pretty much what I expected: the famous people had their message together and presented well (although I got the feeling Shermer was presenting an early draft). The rest either did a decent job or failed catastrophically. Seriously, people: show up with the right version of your slides, and resist the urge to stand there and read them to the audience word-for-word.

At this point I’d call myself 50/50 for going next year. I really loved some of the content, and was left flat by other parts of it. Frankly, the core work of Mr. Randi himself has become a bit boring to me. I don’t care as much about debunking “woo-woo” nonsense like astrology, ghosts, or faith healing (though the Sylvia Browne write-up that came after TAM6 is fairly brilliant). I get much more jazzed and happy about actual progressive science and discovery than I do about using science to battle people who are fundamentally unscientific; it’s a nearly pointless and always frustrating argument. I may look for another conference to go to that is more “pure science”, but we’ll see.

I’m sitting at a table awaiting the beginning of the second full day of presentations. Yesterday was really neat and I’m still pondering the heavy-science presentation by PZ Meyers. He simply blew my mind with a brief introduction to molecular biology and the way a particular experiment mapped a genetic growth factor between bats and mice, creating mice with forelimbs that were 6% longer. The power and subtlety of such discoveries is staggering to me.

I think I’m going to start looking for pure science conferences and talks to go to. It’s the discovery that really excites me, and I want more! Hopefully I’ll get more of that today with the likes of Phil hitting the stage.

Penn and Teller kinda took the easy route and just did a fairly short Q&A session. The most surprising part was, of course, Teller’s voice. For some reason I assumed he’d have a smaller more typical voice, but it is quite rich and radio-worthy. The typical questions were asked, with a few bits of “dance, monkey, dance” silly baiting. Those questions always remind me of “An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder” which is badly marred by people trying to get Mr. Smith to simply repeat the performances on the first DVD.

Someone did ask a good question about Penn’s own “gris gris” which I think he answered well. Even skeptics must admit that we see parts of our world through biased eyes and continue to hold on to ideals or priorities that may not be perfect. We must be skeptical of ourselves lest we become myopic.

They finished their session by screening a short film called “The Cold Reader”, which plays right into the central themes that Randi has pursued throughout his debunking career. It was a very enjoyable portrayal of a psychic scam artist working a couple of his clients. It was fun to see a dramatized first-person treatment of that world. I was also struck by the potential of such a medium, making the practice of psychic readings seem terribly absurd but doing so without resorting to any sort of plain, logical argument. Drama is, in some ways and to some people, a far more effective way of making a point.

Now the auction is over and I’ve been refueled with free coffee. Next up is the brilliant PZ Meyers. Hopefully his laptop is all set up and ready. Yes, even in a room full of this many geeks, there are still presentation problems (both with the projectors and the preparation of the speakers).

I’m here in Vegas for TAM6, which is rolling along now. The first day was just a few cocktails and paid sessions (which I skipped), but now we’re into the swing of the normal sessions and presentation. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, billed as the keynote speaker, was fantastic. Speaking in a much more informal fashion than his usual presentations, he provided a lot of comedy and commentary on viewing the world as a scientist, especially in the presence of conspiratorial (UFOs and the like) and plain bad thought processes. He, being a publicly known scientist, gets to hear a lot of the same dumb questions over and over again. He punctuated his talk with a cosmologist’s view of our place in the universe.

It really is a stunning place that we take in this huge expanse, isn’t it?

Penn & Teller, now starting their presentation…

Update: I forgot to mention that I spent this session sitting next to a quiet young man that, after a little conversation, I discovered was none other than Captain Disillusion!

I can’t even comprehend the reflexes and skill it takes to fly an RC helicopter like this.

On Father’s Day I want to take a moment to do something a little odd on my blog. Most of the time I talk only of myself and my experiences. I tend to restrict myself in this way since I don’t want to assume that other people, particularly my friends, want to have a play-by-play of their life recorded by me publicly on the Internet. I don’t mention a lot of names.

But I have to call some people out on this special day: John and Bev, my dad and mom. These two people, who came together in matrimony nearly 41 years ago, chose to begin the family unit of which I am proud to be a part. Together, though thick and thin (sometimes extremely so), they raised 3 kids who have become adults and started to repeat the cycle by founding their own families. In this way they have created one of the most lasting and amazing things in his world: they have created a living legacy. The reverberations of their genetic code and, far more importantly, their personal influence will echo far into the future. When I stop to think of this and its potential, I’m awe-struck. The great men and women of history have their humble beginnings, and their myriad inspirations. My parents have touched so many people, myself included, that their scope of influence in incalculable. There is no doubt in my mind that their impact has made the world better.

So today I honor my parents. They nurtured, taught, praised, corrected, comforted, and encouraged me. They mended cuts, built tree houses, prepared meals, and helped with homework. My list could go on for pages, but the important conclusion is this: they gave me everything, and continue to affect me.

Thank you both. You’re amazing.

Mitch and I headed over to the Fillmore tonight to catch Dethklok, the most brutal band in (animated) metal. When we got there, I saw people getting pushed out of the door instead of going in, and the line wasn’t moving. Only a few minutes later, about six fire trucks showed up, including two ladder trucks! Apparently there was a small fire in an upper room during the first few songs of the opening band.

Not long later Mitch noticed that an upstairs light previously visible through a window had gone out. I looked, and the outdoor signs were also off: they’d cut power to the building. The two ladder trucks raised their booms up to the roof and sent a few firemen up to check things about. It was about then that I figured the night was doomed. Once the power was killed, it seemed unlikely that we would be seeing a performance.

The crowd huddled on the sidewalks and passed information about who had seen what. We speculated regarding our chances. Overall, the crowd was in a decent mood and comedic relief came when someone started waving at us from the roof of an adjacent building. With characteristic brutality the chant arose, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

After about forty minutes, as the cold wind whipped through largely t-shirt-clad mob, word started filtering back: the bouncers had announced that the concert was off. For the most part, the crowd reacted by being a little upset and bummed, but rolling with it as most people do when there’s nothing that can be done. There was a fire! The concert wasn’t going to happen unless the owners were sure it could be done safely. A couple metal-heads started getting pissed off and yelling at the staff, but were met with scores of rolling eyes that said en masse, “Dude, chill. You were here to see a cartoon band.”

The crowd got their parting comedic shot in by joining in a futile chorus of “Free shit! Free shit!”, hoping in vain for schwag.

Oh well, time to check TicketMaster and get my money back. I’m bummed I didn’t get to rock out tonight; it would’ve been fun.

Support is frustrating. On-line chat support goes beyond that into the realm of “infuriating” by using even less equipped employees who are given little or no training and a click driven interface for providing robotic responses that are at their best ingenuous or, at their worst, simply insulting. Rhapsody, which I love but am frequently frustrated with, uses this means of support for their web service (the only way I can use their service on my work Mac). I was feeling punchy after their player plugin, which seems to suffer frequent problems, was keeping me from repeatedly playing the songs I need to learn in order to further my Rock Band career.

After my first session was interrupted by the instructions of the support person (clearing cookies, of course, destroys the cookie the chat application depends on), I was in a poor mood. As is my tendency, I drifted toward sarcastic and cynical. So, I present to you the following complete chat log with only three minor modifications. First, I removed the email account information I use to log in. Second, I changed the named of the support engineer to “Eliza” to protect the innocent. And third, I reordered two lines so that it reads more easily (Eliza was very quick with the automated platitudes).

Eliza: Hello. Welcome to Real’s Live Chat. How can I help you?
Kyle: First: make a note to your colleagues that “Clear Private Data” isn’t a very good answer for troubleshooting browser problems, since it disconnects the chat
Kyle: Second, I still cannot log into Rhapsody online
Eliza: I’m listening. Please go ahead.
Eliza: Am I correct in understanding that you are having problem in sign in to the Rhapsody.com?
Kyle: Correct
Kyle: email/password combo works fine to log into my account details via “My Account” on real.com
Eliza: Sure I can help you in providing the information regarding this issue.
Eliza: Please give me a couple of minutes while I check your account.
Kyle: And thank you for the dehumanizing and demoralizing use of canned, pasted responses identical to the last support person. It makes me feel like a unique and beautiful flower.
Eliza: Thanks for your time and patience.
Eliza: I could see an active Rhapsody Unlimited subscription under this email address: REDACTED
Kyle: Correct
Kyle: … though “Unlimited” seems to be a misnomer given the frequency of authentication problems.
Eliza: Now can you please let me know what is the error message you get when you try to sign in Rhapsody.com?
Kyle: “There was a problem logging you in. Please check your username and password and try again.”
Eliza: Now can you please let me know the what is the web browser you are using to sign to the Rhapsody com?
Kyle: Firefox 3 on a Mac, RhapsodyPlayerEngine 1.1.0
Eliza: May I know the version of Windows (98, ME, XP, 2000) that you are using?
Kyle: No. Because I don’t run Windows on my Mac.
Kyle: It runs Mac OSX 10.5.3
Eliza: Thanks for the information.
Eliza: Now in order to resolve this problem I suggest you to perform this below listed steps.
Eliza: Please follow the steps for uninstalling & installing Rhapsody online in Mac operating system:

• Open up your Main HDD (Where OSX is Installed)
• Find and open up the “Library” folder
• Then open the folder “Internet Plug-Ins”
• In this folder, locate the file “RhapsodyPlayerEngine.plugin” and drag this file to the trash
• Once this file is deleted, please visit http://www.rhapsody.com again and click on sign in to download the plug-in again.

Eliza: Are we in progress?
Kyle: Yes. And it’s working as well as my last experiences installing the plugin.
Eliza: Great! I’m glad it worked.
Kyle: Don’t get too excited there, Eliza.
Kyle: My last experience were not “good”.
Eliza: I see.
Kyle: I shall now restart Firefox, since your guys’ plugin seem to the the only .xpi packaged plugin that silently fails during install
Eliza: Yes.
Kyle: But restarting things several times will often do the trick. It’s a very sad user experience, and great motivation for me to cancel my account.
Kyle: I shall leave you now, to solve the problems of other people.
Eliza: Now can you please try to sign the account and check.
Kyle: And hope that someone in Rhapsody operations finally notices the giant blinking red light that says “authentication is hosed”.
Kyle: Thank you Eliza, it has been robotic and unfruitful. Have a great day!
Eliza: You are welcome.
Eliza: Is there anything else that I can help you with today?
Kyle: Certainly not.
You have disconnected.

Thanks, Eliza. I know you tried. It’s your boss’s fault for providing you with bad tools and no information. Having reinstalled, restarted, rebooted and sacrificed a chicken I am again listening to music. There’s no way for me to tell if I solved a problem or if the time I wasted allowed them to fix a problem on their side. But, if history teaches me anything, I’ll get more data in a few weeks when this happens again.

I’m horribly saddened at the passing of Bill McCauley. I count him among my friends, and am very sad to see that he took his own life.

That really sucks, Bill. I’ll miss you.