XKCD only occasionally fails to amuse me.Here’s today’s. TED was the conference Bill Gates released mosquitoes at. It’s a gathering of the “best and brightest” minds in America.
Tag: xkcd
I spy
Spy vs Spy
This cartoon reminded me of a scene from NCIS the other night. It’s one of those TV shows I’ve probably under appreciated- the other being Bones. This post is largely about the things that I’ve been occupying my time with so far these holidays. I really like xkcd. I find their blend of stick figures and humour quite appealing.
I’ve been on holidays for a week now – or just over a week. My holidays thus far have consisted of time spent with family celebrating Christmas and having idiosyncratic family “moments” and the inevitable resolutions that follow. I’ve been filling the time reading books, and watching some cricket, and some Prison Break (series 3).
The cricket has been largely frustrating. Honestly, how our bowling attack seemingly duel handedly rested on the shoulders (how’s that for mixed metaphors) of Warne and McGrath for so long without our esteemed selectors doing any succession planning is beyond me. How can we be so devoid of bowling talent in a nation that prides itself on the depth of our domestic competition. I blame twenty20 or however they write the name of that abomination that causes desolation… anyway, I digress.
I’ve also managed to plow through a David Baldacci thriller. I don’t know about you – but I like my holiday reading to be pretty mindless. So “The Whole Truth” appealed to me much more than it did to the reviewer quoted on the Amazon page:
“Usually a sophisticated plotter, bestseller Baldacci (Absolute Power) offers a story line and villain on a par with an average James Bond film in what’s billed as his first international thriller. Nicholas Creel, the head of the Ares Corporation, a huge defense contractor, hires a perception management firm to start a second cold war by planting fake news stories on the Internet about Russian atrocities.”
Really it’s Wag the Dog for the Web 2.0 generation. Where once movie studios were used to create conflict for political gains – the protagonist in this novel employs blogs and youtube. I enjoyed it.
Not quite so mindless was the next holiday read – Final Theory. It’s like science fiction – only fiction about science, rather than the traditional sci-fi.
I find injustice in books slightly frustrating. When the central character is under unwarranted scrutiny or being mistreated by the “good guys” – the authorities. Which is what happens at the start Final Theory.
I watched the Get Smart movie last night for the first time. It was funny, and it’s the common thread that links the title with these other ramblings – other than the fact that they’re what I’ve been “spying” in the last few days. I enjoyed Get Smart.
I am in a little trouble though – I’m now almost at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the books I have to read during the holidays (and we’ve got a bit of flying and driving ahead of us with our New Zealand jaunt just around the corner). I walked around Angus and Robertson yesterday and was pretty uninspired. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Repealing Godwin’s Law
Don't mention the law
I mentioned Godwin’s Law in the last post. It’s an interesting law – originally coined by Mike Godwin in 1990 to address the trend of usenet users throwing Hitler into arguments.
Originally expressed Godwin’s Law read:
“As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or to Nazis approaches 1”
The basic application of the law was that the first person to mention Hitler lost the argument.
Godwin has an interesting explanation of his side of the story here.
“Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust.”
“I understood instantly the connection between the humiliations inflicted there and the ones the Nazis imposed upon death camp inmates—but I am the one person in the world least able to draw attention to that valid comparison.”
The problem with people blindly accusing people of breaking Godwin’s Law is that they’re going by the letter and not the spirit of the law. This probably only happens to me, because I engage in frivolous discussion with art studenty type geeks people… the kind of people who know what Godwin’s Law is to begin with.
There’s another article on pretty much the same thing here. That argues the repeal on the basis that Hitler should be fair game as a test case in arguments.
“The rules of snippy online debates, though, are nothing compared to public discourse. The Anti-Defamation League has beaten the hell out of anyone who’s dared use a Nazi analogy over the last decade. ”
“Thus, despite all efforts at regulation, the market has repeatedly decided in favor of the N-bomb. There simply isn’t any other tableau, in history or fiction, that offers the same variety of evil and oppressive examples as the Third Reich. Why compare some propaganda to 1984 and some slaughter to Srebrenica when you can double down and link both of them to Nazism?”
New Bretton Woods
From XKCD…
