Friday, May 29, 2009
And Now for Something Completely Different
Good old-fashioned Star Trek destroys Star Trek: Enterprise. Yay!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Poor Water Stanley
There's nothing quite so amusing as a good scam letter. I've let this one linger in my email box for a while, but finally gotten around to it.
Dear friend, As you read this, I do not want you to feel sorry for me, because I believe everyone will die someday.So this time, instead of an appeal to my greed, I'm getting an appeal to my sympathy. At least it's not a disaster exploit.
For a British national, he has appallingly poor English grammar. That's also a rather odd name for a Brit (I would have expected Walter rather than "water"), and if memory serves, the British typically capitalize their names. These little details don't necessarily mean the writer isn't British, but they do raise my doubts.My name is water stanley a merchant in London, United Kingdom.
I have been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and have been in the hospital for a very long time. It has defied all forms of medical treatment,and right now I have about few months to live, according to the medical experts. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone (not even myself) but my business and wealth. Though I Am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.The appeal to my sympathy continues. Most of us want to feel like we've been generous and helped our fellow human beings, but we feel like we haven't had the opportunity to be as generous as we would like. "Water" is plucking at those harp strings.
I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it till date. Now that God is calling me, I have willed and shared most of my properties and assets to my immediate and extended family members, including few close friends. I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul, so I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth before Gods call."Water" puts out an appeal to my religious sentiments, as well. I'm not exactly the most susceptible person in the world to such appeals, and there are plenty of evangelicals who might tell him that good works don't carry any weight with God, but there's no shortage of people who might feel the pull.
So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.K, Algeria and Malaysia and some other countries. Now that my health has been deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan; they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them.Betrayed by his greedy family; that's really sad. If only there were estate attorneys in the United Kingdom who specialized in helping wealthy people arrange for their assets to be distributed as they wanted at the time of their deaths. So sad.
The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of twenty eight million united states dollars ($28.000.000) that I have with a Bank. I would want you to help me collect this deposit on my behalf and distribute it to charity organizations in your country. I would want you to keep 20% of the funds to yourself and share the rest to charity organizations in your country. Reply this email as soon as possible if you are capable to handle this transaction on my behalf. My regards and Love to you and your family members. God be with you,
Water Stanley
Oh, I'm sorry, there is going to be an appeal to my greed. "Water" is going to trust me, a complete stranger, to donate over 22 million dollars to charities of my choice, keeping only about five and a half million for myself.
Once again, a scammer who hopes I'm stupid enough to believe there are absurdly wealth people who have no idea how to handle money. Do not fall for this crap, people! The rich don't get that way by being idiots.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Silly TV: Deadliest Warrior
Spike TV has been running a new show lately that I find amusing, in an MST3K sort of way. The show is Deadliest Warrior, and it purports to determine which of two historical “warriors” would prevail if they had to fight.
I’m surprised that they don’t hit any of the “classic” matchups that I would expect: “Pirate vs Ninja” or “Knight vs Samurai”, for example. They seem to prefer throwing opponents with radically different fighting styles against each other. The outcome of such a contest would really be determined more by the circumstances of the fight than by the equipment of the combatants. For instance, in “Gladiator vs Apache”, the outcome would largely depend on whether the battle was more like a woodland ambush or an arena bout.
Alas, the show never addresses the circumstances of the fight. The evaluation revolves entirely around the amount of damage the combatants' weapons can do to various ballistics gel dummies, pig bodies, and other human analogs. It goes without saying that the choice of weapons assigned to each combatant will significantly affect the outcome of a contest.
As a quick example, we’ll look at one contest: “Samurai vs Viking”. Each warrior comes to the fight with four weapons, with each weapon assigned to a category: long-range, mid-range, short-range, or special. The weapons assigned to the Samurai are the katana (short-range, the classic Samurai sword), naginata (mid-range, a pole-arm used for both slashing and thrusting), yumi (long-range, a type of bow), and kanabo (special, essentially a weighted club). The Viking comes to the fight with a great axe (short-range), long sword (mid-range), spear (long-range), and shield (special).
The show’s methodology is to directly compare the long-range weapons to each other, the short-range weapons to each other, etc. The evaluators give an “edge” to one warrior or the other for each weapon type, depending on which weapon did more damage in their tests. I don’t really know how their “state-of-the-art computer program” works, but I’d have to guess that it starts the combatants at long-range and performs some kind of test to see if one warrior kills the other. If there’s no kill, it advances them to mid-range and tests again, and so on until it finally gets a kill at short-range. The program runs through the entire procedure 1000 times, and the warrior with the most wins is declared "the deadliest warrior" (shown in a dramatization that apparently does not try to simulate the computer outcomes in any meaningful way).
I immediately see a problem with their evaluation, though. They evaluated the Viking shield based on how much damage it could do with a shield punch, compared to the damage that could be inflicted by the kanabo. It goes without saying that the kanabo is a more practical way to deal damage than a shield punch, but the usefulness of the shield as a defense was never really evaluated.
For instance, they compared the yumi to the spear and concluded that the Samurai would have the advantage at long range. Now, I won’t dispute that the yumi has superior range and accuracy, but the Viking shield apparently wasn’t factored into the long-range portion of the contest. Bows were a well-known weapon to the Vikings, and any Viking with a grain of sense would put his shield up in front of him upon noticing that his enemy was armed with a bow, allowing him to close the distance in relative safety.
The shield would remain a factor at mid-range. If the Viking succeeds in blocking a stroke from the naginata with his shield, he can move inside it’s range.
And the shield continues to be a factor at short range. Here, the Samurai may decide to draw his katana, but the Viking has no incentive to abandon the protection of the shield to use the two-handed axe. In close combat, the Viking would probably continue using the long sword, if he had one (the reason many Vikings carried axes being that they were much less expensive than swords). The shield continues to afford extra protection for the Viking, allowing him to attack without being as vulnerable to counter-attack, and there’s a very real possibility that a katana slash would bite into the edge of the shield and stick, trapping the blade. Effectively disarmed, if only briefly, the Samurai would be extremely vulnerable in such a situation.
I’m not saying that the Viking should have won this match; I’m just saying that many factors affecting its outcome were overlooked. For instance, in their heyday, Samurai were primarily horse archers, not footmen. A Samurai on horseback with his bow would have a considerable advantage, as he would be able to maintain his distance and repeatedly attack his opponent with little danger of a counter-attack. As I said, the circumstances of these fights would have a huge effect on their outcome.
Even their weapon-to-weapon comparisons are dubious. For instance, their comparison of the Pirate cutlass to the Knight's broadsword resulted in an “even” evaluation, despite the fact that the cutlass is exactly the sort of weapon against which the Knight's armor (listed among his assets) would be most effective.
And let's not even start on their characterizations of which warrior had honor, discipline, and courage on his side; they don't really affect the outcomes, anyway.
So Deadliest Warrior is really a show about smack-talk and breaking things, not a serious scientific evaluation of historical combat practices. The outcomes seem to be based much more on popularity than on any real science, since getting a desired outcome is easy to achieve simply by choosing which weapon comparisons to make to give the desired results.
Each week on Deadliest Warrior, a new episode will pit two of the most feared warriors civilization has ever known against each other. Along with the use of 21st century science and the latest in CGI technology, each episode enlists warrior-specific world-class fighters and experts to provide insight into what makes these combatants tick, analyzing every facet of their unique skills of destruction, culminating in a head-to-head final fight between two legends of the battlefield that will produce the deadliest warrior.Recent match-ups include “Gladiator vs Apache”, “Viking vs Samurai”, and “Knight vs Pirate”. The general setup of the show is to get some “experts” to evaluate the weapons used by the warriors in the contest, feed this information into a “state-of-the-art computer program”, and get an “objective” conclusion about the result. Each warrior has special advocates pulled in to argue for their side during the evaluations, and the smack-talk flows thick.
I’m surprised that they don’t hit any of the “classic” matchups that I would expect: “Pirate vs Ninja” or “Knight vs Samurai”, for example. They seem to prefer throwing opponents with radically different fighting styles against each other. The outcome of such a contest would really be determined more by the circumstances of the fight than by the equipment of the combatants. For instance, in “Gladiator vs Apache”, the outcome would largely depend on whether the battle was more like a woodland ambush or an arena bout.
Alas, the show never addresses the circumstances of the fight. The evaluation revolves entirely around the amount of damage the combatants' weapons can do to various ballistics gel dummies, pig bodies, and other human analogs. It goes without saying that the choice of weapons assigned to each combatant will significantly affect the outcome of a contest.
As a quick example, we’ll look at one contest: “Samurai vs Viking”. Each warrior comes to the fight with four weapons, with each weapon assigned to a category: long-range, mid-range, short-range, or special. The weapons assigned to the Samurai are the katana (short-range, the classic Samurai sword), naginata (mid-range, a pole-arm used for both slashing and thrusting), yumi (long-range, a type of bow), and kanabo (special, essentially a weighted club). The Viking comes to the fight with a great axe (short-range), long sword (mid-range), spear (long-range), and shield (special).
The show’s methodology is to directly compare the long-range weapons to each other, the short-range weapons to each other, etc. The evaluators give an “edge” to one warrior or the other for each weapon type, depending on which weapon did more damage in their tests. I don’t really know how their “state-of-the-art computer program” works, but I’d have to guess that it starts the combatants at long-range and performs some kind of test to see if one warrior kills the other. If there’s no kill, it advances them to mid-range and tests again, and so on until it finally gets a kill at short-range. The program runs through the entire procedure 1000 times, and the warrior with the most wins is declared "the deadliest warrior" (shown in a dramatization that apparently does not try to simulate the computer outcomes in any meaningful way).
I immediately see a problem with their evaluation, though. They evaluated the Viking shield based on how much damage it could do with a shield punch, compared to the damage that could be inflicted by the kanabo. It goes without saying that the kanabo is a more practical way to deal damage than a shield punch, but the usefulness of the shield as a defense was never really evaluated.
For instance, they compared the yumi to the spear and concluded that the Samurai would have the advantage at long range. Now, I won’t dispute that the yumi has superior range and accuracy, but the Viking shield apparently wasn’t factored into the long-range portion of the contest. Bows were a well-known weapon to the Vikings, and any Viking with a grain of sense would put his shield up in front of him upon noticing that his enemy was armed with a bow, allowing him to close the distance in relative safety.
The shield would remain a factor at mid-range. If the Viking succeeds in blocking a stroke from the naginata with his shield, he can move inside it’s range.
And the shield continues to be a factor at short range. Here, the Samurai may decide to draw his katana, but the Viking has no incentive to abandon the protection of the shield to use the two-handed axe. In close combat, the Viking would probably continue using the long sword, if he had one (the reason many Vikings carried axes being that they were much less expensive than swords). The shield continues to afford extra protection for the Viking, allowing him to attack without being as vulnerable to counter-attack, and there’s a very real possibility that a katana slash would bite into the edge of the shield and stick, trapping the blade. Effectively disarmed, if only briefly, the Samurai would be extremely vulnerable in such a situation.
I’m not saying that the Viking should have won this match; I’m just saying that many factors affecting its outcome were overlooked. For instance, in their heyday, Samurai were primarily horse archers, not footmen. A Samurai on horseback with his bow would have a considerable advantage, as he would be able to maintain his distance and repeatedly attack his opponent with little danger of a counter-attack. As I said, the circumstances of these fights would have a huge effect on their outcome.
Even their weapon-to-weapon comparisons are dubious. For instance, their comparison of the Pirate cutlass to the Knight's broadsword resulted in an “even” evaluation, despite the fact that the cutlass is exactly the sort of weapon against which the Knight's armor (listed among his assets) would be most effective.
And let's not even start on their characterizations of which warrior had honor, discipline, and courage on his side; they don't really affect the outcomes, anyway.
So Deadliest Warrior is really a show about smack-talk and breaking things, not a serious scientific evaluation of historical combat practices. The outcomes seem to be based much more on popularity than on any real science, since getting a desired outcome is easy to achieve simply by choosing which weapon comparisons to make to give the desired results.
Monday, April 27, 2009
"Intelligent Designer" comes back in the comments
"Intelligent Designer" (Randy) finally got around to responding (see the comments) to my response to his refute...
As to the rest of his case, no I don't see the validity. The average length of a gene may be 1210 base pairs (I haven't done a fact check on that), but the current average length of a gene is irrelevant. There are certainly many shorter genes, and there's no reason to assume that the current average must apply all the way back to the original molecule that started the process of evolution. I've already linked to a good explanation of abiogenesis, which works with self-replicating molecules that are composed entirely of junk DNA. You can get the ball rolling with pure static, so you don't need to have hundreds of base pairs in some kind of functional code for evolution to begin. From abiogenesis forward, any DNA strand that forms the simplest of productive genes is gravy.
Our different perspectives about the nature of DNA do indeed account for some of our disagreement. I don’t consider DNA to be a hodgepodge of genes in no particular order interspersed with vast amounts of gibberish. Instead I think that the majority of DNA appears to gibberish because the current scientific understanding of DNA has barely scratched the surface of what is really there. It only makes sense that scientists would figure out what the protein-coding sequences of DNA do first. It doesn’t make sense to jump to the conclusion that the rest of it is junk.Randy has taken the safe approach by claiming that the DNA that is currently considered "junk" by geneticists will eventually be found to be important. It's safe because it's a position that can't be falsified. There's no way I can possibly prove that "junk DNA" will never be found to have an important function. He can lurk in that nebulous "one day we may discover its importance" realm forever, because he has until the end of the universe to be disproven. All I can say is that since he can not show that "junk DNA" has a function, there's no evidence of a function. Generally speaking, the burden of proof is on the person who asserts the existence of a thing, not the person who denies it. To use a cliche, I can assert that there's an invisible, intangible dragon living in the shed behind my house, but do you have any reason to believe my assertion? Without any evidence that junk DNA serves a purpose (beyond adding to the medium in which mutation and subsequent selection can work), there's no reason to assume we will eventually find one. So "Yes", Randy, it does make sense to assume that DNA that has no known function is junk.
But let’s say for the sake of argument that you are right about the nature of DNA. Even in that case my argument is still valid. As you recall my calculation regarding the probability of information used a 151 character sequence. The average length of a gene is 1210 base pairs and is hardly equivalent to the three of four letter words used in your example.
As to the rest of his case, no I don't see the validity. The average length of a gene may be 1210 base pairs (I haven't done a fact check on that), but the current average length of a gene is irrelevant. There are certainly many shorter genes, and there's no reason to assume that the current average must apply all the way back to the original molecule that started the process of evolution. I've already linked to a good explanation of abiogenesis, which works with self-replicating molecules that are composed entirely of junk DNA. You can get the ball rolling with pure static, so you don't need to have hundreds of base pairs in some kind of functional code for evolution to begin. From abiogenesis forward, any DNA strand that forms the simplest of productive genes is gravy.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The Ticking Time Bomb Challenge
I’m hearing this argument on talk radio a lot lately.
Let me go on record as saying that the government should unequivocally outlaw torture. Not only is it unethical, it’s an unreliable means of getting information. Victims of torture do not necessarily tell the truth. Generally speaking, they tell the torturer whatever they think will make the torture stop, whether it’s true or not. In the hypothetical situation, the interrogator really doesn’t have a way to tell if the captive is lying; anything the captive says could lead agents on a wild goose chase, making it even less likely that they’ll succeed in stopping the bomb.
But let’s say that I really am convinced that my captive has the information needed to save thousands of American lives and that I’m convinced I can get that information from him in time to do something about it. In that case, yes, I will use “aggressive techniques” to extract the information. I will not, however, complain when I’m sent to prison for torturing the guy. If the information was worth his pain and suffering, then it’s also worth my personal freedom.
Can we give this argument a rest, now?
You are a government agent who has discovered a plot to set off a nuclear weapon in the US. You have captured one of the terrorists involved in the plot, and you are convinced that your captive knows where to find the bomb. You are also convinced that the bomb will go off in just a few hours, so time is of the essence. Would you torture the captive to make him tell you the location of the bomb?This argument is designed to get you to admit that the federal government should not publicly outlaw “aggressive interrogation” techniques like waterboarding. If you say “yes”, you agree that such techniques should not be forbidden; if you say “no”, you put the well-being of one terrorist ahead of the lives of thousands of American citizens.
Let me go on record as saying that the government should unequivocally outlaw torture. Not only is it unethical, it’s an unreliable means of getting information. Victims of torture do not necessarily tell the truth. Generally speaking, they tell the torturer whatever they think will make the torture stop, whether it’s true or not. In the hypothetical situation, the interrogator really doesn’t have a way to tell if the captive is lying; anything the captive says could lead agents on a wild goose chase, making it even less likely that they’ll succeed in stopping the bomb.
But let’s say that I really am convinced that my captive has the information needed to save thousands of American lives and that I’m convinced I can get that information from him in time to do something about it. In that case, yes, I will use “aggressive techniques” to extract the information. I will not, however, complain when I’m sent to prison for torturing the guy. If the information was worth his pain and suffering, then it’s also worth my personal freedom.
Can we give this argument a rest, now?
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Overachievement
This is a picture I took on my last trip to Pennsic, made into a poster with the BigHugeLabs motivational poster maker.
The Ashleys should get a kick out of it.
The Ashleys should get a kick out of it.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 06, 2009
SciFi’s Ghost Hunters
I have roommates who find Ghost Hunters amusing. I suppose it is, if you like watching a study of how not to conduct proper scientific research.
If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), which consists of a couple of plumbers and their friends, go to “haunted” locations and attempt to verify whether paranormal activity is occurring. Needless to say, these people have little idea how to properly conduct such an investigation, and their methods are ripe for confirmation bias.
Normally, the TAPS crew visits a location in response to a request from the owners or residents. Their first action upon arriving is to question the “witnesses” of “paranormal” events, asking what they thought they saw and where they thought the saw it. With these “hot spots” identified, they set up cameras and microphones to record activities in those particular locations. The team then spends the night at the site, wandering through the hot spots, trying to provoke reactions from “spirits”, and recording any “significant” instrument readings or “personal experiences” consistent with the stories they were told. Need I mention that they do this in the dark, making them all the more susceptible to “chills” and other spooky feelings.
Like I said, their method is ripe for confirmation bias. Any unexplained noise or “chill” or draft is easy to attribute to paranormal activity. They do dismiss many events that can easily be traced to something mundane, but they seldom actually dismiss claims of a haunting (if ever - I've never seen it happen), because there are always a few “personal experiences” for which they found no specific mundane explanation.
The most obvious thing that their method lacks is any type of control, and I mean “control” in the scientific sense often associated with drug trials. In a drug trial, some test patients get a placebo instead of the drug being tested, so they have the same experience as the other patients, just no actual chemical. The patients don’t know whether their drug is the real thing or a placebo, so they can’t prejudice the results of the test with their knowledge (it's well known that receiving treatment -- even placebo treatment -- affects the expression of a patient's symptoms).
TAPS could do something similar in their investigations. First, they need some blinding. The investigators who spend the night in the site looking for evidence of paranormal activity can’t be the people who interview the original “witnesses”; knowing where events are supposed to happen taints the evidence. Second, they need to create some “placebo hot spots” – attribute some paranormal activity to locations on the site where the witnesses haven’t actually reported anything. Write out the full list of “hot spots” and “placebo hot spots” – with no distinction between them of course – for the investigators who will spend the night at the site. Finally, have a third team of investigators (more blinding) to analyze the evidence that the on-site team gathered without actually speaking to the on-site team first, again seeking to minimize confirmation bias.
If the experiences of the site's witnesses are connected to actual paranormal events, you would expect the true “hot spots” to generate significantly more instrument readings and “personal experiences” than the placebo “hot spots”. If there’s no significant difference between the two, then you can safely dismiss the activity in the “hot spots” as investigator error.
But Ghost Hunters would never institute such a rigorously scientific method of investigating a “haunted” site. That would inevitably result in an endless string of negative results, and they won’t be able to generate ratings with results like that, so they will undoubtedly continue to use the useless protocols they currently follow.
If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), which consists of a couple of plumbers and their friends, go to “haunted” locations and attempt to verify whether paranormal activity is occurring. Needless to say, these people have little idea how to properly conduct such an investigation, and their methods are ripe for confirmation bias.
Normally, the TAPS crew visits a location in response to a request from the owners or residents. Their first action upon arriving is to question the “witnesses” of “paranormal” events, asking what they thought they saw and where they thought the saw it. With these “hot spots” identified, they set up cameras and microphones to record activities in those particular locations. The team then spends the night at the site, wandering through the hot spots, trying to provoke reactions from “spirits”, and recording any “significant” instrument readings or “personal experiences” consistent with the stories they were told. Need I mention that they do this in the dark, making them all the more susceptible to “chills” and other spooky feelings.
Like I said, their method is ripe for confirmation bias. Any unexplained noise or “chill” or draft is easy to attribute to paranormal activity. They do dismiss many events that can easily be traced to something mundane, but they seldom actually dismiss claims of a haunting (if ever - I've never seen it happen), because there are always a few “personal experiences” for which they found no specific mundane explanation.
The most obvious thing that their method lacks is any type of control, and I mean “control” in the scientific sense often associated with drug trials. In a drug trial, some test patients get a placebo instead of the drug being tested, so they have the same experience as the other patients, just no actual chemical. The patients don’t know whether their drug is the real thing or a placebo, so they can’t prejudice the results of the test with their knowledge (it's well known that receiving treatment -- even placebo treatment -- affects the expression of a patient's symptoms).
TAPS could do something similar in their investigations. First, they need some blinding. The investigators who spend the night in the site looking for evidence of paranormal activity can’t be the people who interview the original “witnesses”; knowing where events are supposed to happen taints the evidence. Second, they need to create some “placebo hot spots” – attribute some paranormal activity to locations on the site where the witnesses haven’t actually reported anything. Write out the full list of “hot spots” and “placebo hot spots” – with no distinction between them of course – for the investigators who will spend the night at the site. Finally, have a third team of investigators (more blinding) to analyze the evidence that the on-site team gathered without actually speaking to the on-site team first, again seeking to minimize confirmation bias.
If the experiences of the site's witnesses are connected to actual paranormal events, you would expect the true “hot spots” to generate significantly more instrument readings and “personal experiences” than the placebo “hot spots”. If there’s no significant difference between the two, then you can safely dismiss the activity in the “hot spots” as investigator error.
But Ghost Hunters would never institute such a rigorously scientific method of investigating a “haunted” site. That would inevitably result in an endless string of negative results, and they won’t be able to generate ratings with results like that, so they will undoubtedly continue to use the useless protocols they currently follow.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Skeptics' Circle 108
The 108th Skeptics' Circle has been posted, and since I'm a participant, I figured a link was in order.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wine at the Grocery
There are a couple of bills before the Tennessee legislature that, if passed, would permit grocery stores in the state to sell wine. Naturally there are lobbyists on both sides of this bill, but some of them are full of hot air.
Statistics from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism show that Tennessee does, in fact, have one of the lowest alcohol consumption rates in the country. Average consumption in the US is 2.27 gallons per person per year, while the average consumption in Tennessee is less than 2.00 g/p/y. Is it because Tennessee doesn't allow wine to be sold in groceries?
Wikipedia conveniently has a comparison of alcohol laws by state, so let’s examine them.
Other states at the bottom of the consumption rate chart with Tennessee include Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia. Of these, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and West Virginia (five out of nine) allow wine sales in grocery stores; Kentucky and West Virginia even allow distilled alcohol sales in grocery stores.
States that forbid wine sales in groceries include Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming. Of these, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Wyoming (six out of fifteen) are at the top of the NIAAA charts with consumption rates greater than 2.50 g/p/y.
Where’s the connection, Chuck? I don’t have a big stake in this vote, but your reasoning (that wine sales in grocery stores increase alcoholism) doesn’t hold up to statistical analysis. More than half of the states at the low end of the alcohol consumption scale permit wine sales in groceries, and over a third of the states at the high end of the consumption scale forbid wine sales in groceries.
Perhaps Pastor Chuck should confine himself to Biblical arguments instead of making unsupported claims about the effects of wine availability on alcoholism rates.
Chuck Groover is the senior pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Mount Juliet. He argues that making wine available in more places will lead to more alcoholism.Fine, Chuck. Why don’t you show us some statistical evidence that alcoholism rates are higher in states where wine is available in grocery stores compared to states where it isn’t?
“Convenience for a few should be the last justification for making higher alcohol-content drink, wine, more accessible to the public by allowing sale in grocery stores.”
Statistics from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism show that Tennessee does, in fact, have one of the lowest alcohol consumption rates in the country. Average consumption in the US is 2.27 gallons per person per year, while the average consumption in Tennessee is less than 2.00 g/p/y. Is it because Tennessee doesn't allow wine to be sold in groceries?
Wikipedia conveniently has a comparison of alcohol laws by state, so let’s examine them.
Other states at the bottom of the consumption rate chart with Tennessee include Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia. Of these, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and West Virginia (five out of nine) allow wine sales in grocery stores; Kentucky and West Virginia even allow distilled alcohol sales in grocery stores.
States that forbid wine sales in groceries include Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming. Of these, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Wyoming (six out of fifteen) are at the top of the NIAAA charts with consumption rates greater than 2.50 g/p/y.
Where’s the connection, Chuck? I don’t have a big stake in this vote, but your reasoning (that wine sales in grocery stores increase alcoholism) doesn’t hold up to statistical analysis. More than half of the states at the low end of the alcohol consumption scale permit wine sales in groceries, and over a third of the states at the high end of the consumption scale forbid wine sales in groceries.
Perhaps Pastor Chuck should confine himself to Biblical arguments instead of making unsupported claims about the effects of wine availability on alcoholism rates.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Incompetent Design: Am I Refuted?
Randy Stimpson certainly thinks that he has definitely refuted the arguments I made about “specified complexity” way back in 2005.
I pointed out in my original article that two phrases of a given length (in which the same set of characters are available) are equally unlikely. Randy thinks that in my rebuttal of the probability argument against the Theory of Evolution, I somehow missed the point. I don't see how I did; maybe he's trying to introduce a new point.
To save length, I'll use my own character strings. Let's compare, shall we? If you read my previous article, these will be familiar.
Randy's problem is that he thinks DNA must be constructed exactly like English sentences. Every word must be spelled correctly, the word order must be correct, and the sentence must be coherent when everything comes together the first time. Unfortunately for him, DNA doesn't look anything like that. DNA looks much more like my third string: it's mostly gibberish, but every once in a while there's an actual gene found in the DNA strand. An actual piece of DNA might look more like the following string.
Randy asks “What is the probability that a random character generator would produce a grammatically correct sequence of characters that makes sense?”, but it's not an accurate analogy, because DNA isn't a sequence of characters that make sense. It's a hodgepodge of genes in no particular order.
A more accurate question might be “What is the probability that a random character generator will produce a sequence of characters that forms an English word?” Notice that I accidentally came up with one within eight characters (honest, I did not put “FORM” in there on purpose).
Now, suppose that you have a rather faulty mechanism for reproducing your strings. Letters occasionally get added, removed, or substituted. In fact, whole sections can get moved around, duplicated, or deleted. Through many copies of copies, words will form. Some will get broken again, but some will stick around for a while. Suppose you start throwing out strings that don't have a particular word: you'll stop having strings that lack that word. As more words emerge, they, too, can become necessary in subsequent copies. After many copies of copies, what might you have? Something like my fourth string, perhaps?
To Randy I can only say, I don't think I'm the one getting it wrong.
I pointed out in my original article that two phrases of a given length (in which the same set of characters are available) are equally unlikely. Randy thinks that in my rebuttal of the probability argument against the Theory of Evolution, I somehow missed the point. I don't see how I did; maybe he's trying to introduce a new point.
To save length, I'll use my own character strings. Let's compare, shall we? If you read my previous article, these will be familiar.
WETHEPEOPLEOFTHEUNITEDSTATESMy first trick was to put these phrases side-by-side, noting that the odds of drawing either at random was the same. I would ask, which of these contains “information”, though. Randy has added some criteria for information.
OMECIHUATLACEUCUCYOTICIHUATI
- It consists of properly spelled English words.
- It is grammatically correct.
- It makes sense.
VJVUFORMHLBFBXIXSBNEUISLAFJHYThis string is not one that I carefully constructed. I set the caps lock and then just randomly pecked around the keyboard, only restricting myself to staying on the letters area and not hitting the same key twice in succession. Even so, I still managed to get a properly spelled English word by accident. Does that mean that this string contains information?
Randy's problem is that he thinks DNA must be constructed exactly like English sentences. Every word must be spelled correctly, the word order must be correct, and the sentence must be coherent when everything comes together the first time. Unfortunately for him, DNA doesn't look anything like that. DNA looks much more like my third string: it's mostly gibberish, but every once in a while there's an actual gene found in the DNA strand. An actual piece of DNA might look more like the following string.
DSSADIINUNITEDSDFIOVOFRNTHEVNMCVUIWECVNJSTATESASEWNMPEOPLEASDFSure, it looks like gibberish at a glance, but if you sort through it carefully, you'll find all the words you need to make my first phrase in there (although you may notice that “THE” only appears in it once). This structure is analagous to the human genome. The great majority of the human genome doesn't code for anything, and the portions that do code for actual proteins are scattered all over it, not neatly organized.
Randy asks “What is the probability that a random character generator would produce a grammatically correct sequence of characters that makes sense?”, but it's not an accurate analogy, because DNA isn't a sequence of characters that make sense. It's a hodgepodge of genes in no particular order.
A more accurate question might be “What is the probability that a random character generator will produce a sequence of characters that forms an English word?” Notice that I accidentally came up with one within eight characters (honest, I did not put “FORM” in there on purpose).
Now, suppose that you have a rather faulty mechanism for reproducing your strings. Letters occasionally get added, removed, or substituted. In fact, whole sections can get moved around, duplicated, or deleted. Through many copies of copies, words will form. Some will get broken again, but some will stick around for a while. Suppose you start throwing out strings that don't have a particular word: you'll stop having strings that lack that word. As more words emerge, they, too, can become necessary in subsequent copies. After many copies of copies, what might you have? Something like my fourth string, perhaps?
To Randy I can only say, I don't think I'm the one getting it wrong.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Food Porn: India, Italy, and the Carribbean
I've had some cooking pictures sitting on the camera for a while, and I've finally gotten around to downloading them, so here's a mass food porn post. First, we made moong dal, a lentil curry, a while back. At least, we made it with red lentils; various recipes on the internet call for split peas and moong beans. The recipe for this one comes from a book, 50 Great Curries of India, by Camellia Panjabi.
I think I'm okay sharing the recipe, since I had to do a bit of substituting. Besides, this is a free plug for the book, right? Anyway, the ingredients include...
- 1 cup of red lentils
- 1 can of diced tomatoes with green chilis
- roughly one cubic inch of ginger root, peeled and chopped
- 3 teaspoons of minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon of powdered tumeric
- salt to taste
- cilantro to taste (which is a lot, in my case)
- 1 tablespoon of butter
I brought five cups of water to boil in a large pot, then added the lentils, tomatoes, ginger, most of the garlic, some salt, and the tumeric. When it came back to a boil, I lowered the heat, covered it, and let it simmer for half an hour. Then, I tossed in cilantro and let it simmer a bit more while I browned the remaining garlic in butter. The "golden brown and delicious" garlic then goes into the pot, and the curry can be served over rice. Better yet, put the moong dal and rice in a tortilla.
Second, I was scrounging for lunch one day and found we had some packaged gnocchi in the cupboard. A bit of net searching and a further check of on-hand ingredients later, I was able to make this sage-parmesan gnocchi (with a bit of grilled chicken thrown in).
And finally, tonight I really wanted to do something with some black beans that were already cooked, so I found a recipe for Jamaican Curried Rice. In the spirit of "fusion", it too goes well in a tortilla.
And I actually remembered to take some pictures of the process for this one.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
D&D: For Lack of a Better Topic
When in doubt, I can always write about D&D games. Last night, the storied picked up exactly where it left off; they had defeated the twigblights, but they were still a long way out in the woods.
Showing that they are, in fact, catching on, the party conducted a thorough search of the darkwood grove and turned up quite a bit of loot left behind by previous victims of the twigblights. This new wealth secured, they set about retracing their steps back to the village of Myre, which Eileen again managed without incident (with her +11 on Survival checks, she only needs to roll a 4 to navigate, even in pretty bad circumstances).
Arriving back in Myre, they found their contact, Alian, who arranged for them to travel back down river with some “lumberjacks” who were floating logs downstream to the lumber yards of the city of Reicha. The lumbermen had a barge loaded with smaller wood that floated in the mass, and there were a couple of canoes on board that they used when they needed to move around the river to break up log jams or keep logs from floating away. The number of logs wasn’t the huge, river-clogging mass that you might see from clear-cutting with modern equipment, but there were still quite a few, and the barge had to stop periodically to keep the whole shipment together. This meant that travel back downstream was considerably slower than their original trip upstream.
(Note: I really know next-to-nothing about how a real log flow would work, but my players don't either, so... yeah.)
Well, one of the stops to break a log jam seemed to be taking forever, and the barge captain sent someone out in the second boat to see what was taking so long. The party decided to help, but the remaining boat wouldn’t hold them all, so they decided to go log-skipping to shore and move up along the bank to where the first boat was trying to clear the log jam. Hilarity ensued as, one by one, the party members failed their Balance checks to stay standing on the floating, bobbing, rolling logs. Everyone ended up swimming at some point, and a couple of rescues were even necessary for people who went under amid the bobbing logs (hooray for strong-swimming half-orcs).
When everyone was finally on shore, they traipsed upstream to where the boats had met at the log jam. There, they found the first boatman dead, apparently stabbed from behind with a rough wooden stake. Suddenly alert to danger, Eileen spotted some kind of creature hidden among the floating logs and took a shot at it with her sling. She missed, and it took off, crawling away among the floating logs, it’s passage only marked by the occasional disturbance among them.
Krag (the half-orc) broke up the log jam, and the party returned to the barge, now watchful for danger. There were no further incidents that day, but Eileen spotted the creature again during her watch that night. She woke Krag and the others, but the creature again fled before they could try to engage it.
The trip downstream continued the next day. One of the boatmen went out to clear another log jam, and Wellby (the halfling ranger) spotted the creature on shore, apparently up to no good. Wellby took a shot with his bow that landed solidly on target, and the thing again fled. Wellby and the others set off for the shore, hoping to track the creature down, and that’s where the night’s session ended…
Showing that they are, in fact, catching on, the party conducted a thorough search of the darkwood grove and turned up quite a bit of loot left behind by previous victims of the twigblights. This new wealth secured, they set about retracing their steps back to the village of Myre, which Eileen again managed without incident (with her +11 on Survival checks, she only needs to roll a 4 to navigate, even in pretty bad circumstances).
Arriving back in Myre, they found their contact, Alian, who arranged for them to travel back down river with some “lumberjacks” who were floating logs downstream to the lumber yards of the city of Reicha. The lumbermen had a barge loaded with smaller wood that floated in the mass, and there were a couple of canoes on board that they used when they needed to move around the river to break up log jams or keep logs from floating away. The number of logs wasn’t the huge, river-clogging mass that you might see from clear-cutting with modern equipment, but there were still quite a few, and the barge had to stop periodically to keep the whole shipment together. This meant that travel back downstream was considerably slower than their original trip upstream.
(Note: I really know next-to-nothing about how a real log flow would work, but my players don't either, so... yeah.)
Well, one of the stops to break a log jam seemed to be taking forever, and the barge captain sent someone out in the second boat to see what was taking so long. The party decided to help, but the remaining boat wouldn’t hold them all, so they decided to go log-skipping to shore and move up along the bank to where the first boat was trying to clear the log jam. Hilarity ensued as, one by one, the party members failed their Balance checks to stay standing on the floating, bobbing, rolling logs. Everyone ended up swimming at some point, and a couple of rescues were even necessary for people who went under amid the bobbing logs (hooray for strong-swimming half-orcs).
When everyone was finally on shore, they traipsed upstream to where the boats had met at the log jam. There, they found the first boatman dead, apparently stabbed from behind with a rough wooden stake. Suddenly alert to danger, Eileen spotted some kind of creature hidden among the floating logs and took a shot at it with her sling. She missed, and it took off, crawling away among the floating logs, it’s passage only marked by the occasional disturbance among them.
Krag (the half-orc) broke up the log jam, and the party returned to the barge, now watchful for danger. There were no further incidents that day, but Eileen spotted the creature again during her watch that night. She woke Krag and the others, but the creature again fled before they could try to engage it.
The trip downstream continued the next day. One of the boatmen went out to clear another log jam, and Wellby (the halfling ranger) spotted the creature on shore, apparently up to no good. Wellby took a shot with his bow that landed solidly on target, and the thing again fled. Wellby and the others set off for the shore, hoping to track the creature down, and that’s where the night’s session ended…
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
D&D: A Walk in the Park
We had another D&D session on Monday. Krag the half-orc barbarian had been dominating the arena battles (predictably enough), so I figured it was time to change to an environment that would favor other characters.
Consequently, the group was approached by someone they had met on their previous body-guarding assignment. This individual, Lucius, wanted them to travel to the Hawkwood Forest northwest of the city and determine why some foresters sent to harvest from a darkwood grove had not returned.
The party’s Halfling ranger, Wellby, handled most of the negotiations. Amusing though he can be, it may not be the best idea to have a pathological boaster with a charisma penalty handle your negotiations. He claimed that the party sorcerer, Kechara, could call lightning from the sky, something that Lucius promptly asked to see demonstrated. As Kechara could not, in fact, do any such thing (yet), the negotiated fee for their services suffered somewhat.
The fee settled, the party traveled up river to the village of Myre, situated at the edge of the forest. Their contacts there were Alian, a local “leather merchant” who relied totally on his apprentice to do any actual leather working, and the huntress who had actually spotted the darkwood grove in question. Her directions to grove were not exactly precise: “Travel upstream to the first tributary from the north bank, follow that to the rocky strand with the waterfall and turn west on the game trail until you see a hill with a limestone outcrop. From there you’ll be able to see the grove.”
Those simple directions would require a DC 15 Survival check for every landmark to avoid getting lost, not to mention a DC 15 Knowledge (nature) check to recognize the darkwood grove from a distance when looking for it from the hilltop. I figured this would be a chance for either the druid, Eileen, or Wellby to shine. As it turns out, Eileen has a Survival check of around +11, so navigating to the darkwood grove was a piece of cake for her. I was hoping the party would blow at least one of the Survival checks, as I was going to inflict a random encounter on them every time they failed one, but Eileen never missed a step.
The threat at the grove was a group of Twigblights, small plant creatures from the Monster Manual II that like to fertilize themselves with fresh blood. These are CR 1/3 creatures, and knowing the devastating nature of Krag, I threw ten of them at the party (although they didn’t all enter combat at the same time). According to the encounter calculator, this would be a “very difficult” fight, but it turned out to be only moderately difficult, at most.
So the most interesting part of the evening turned out to be earlier, in Myre, when Wellby got drunk, annoyed pretty much everyone, and was knocked out by a frustrated Krag. To relieve their frustrations, the other party members dumped Wellby into a horse trough to sleep off his drunk. Upon waking, he decided to break into the inn and “tea bag” Krag, but didn’t move quietly enough. Krag flung him across the room, where he was pummeled into submission by irate inn patrons and sent to the village lockup for the rest of the night.
Consequently, the group was approached by someone they had met on their previous body-guarding assignment. This individual, Lucius, wanted them to travel to the Hawkwood Forest northwest of the city and determine why some foresters sent to harvest from a darkwood grove had not returned.
The party’s Halfling ranger, Wellby, handled most of the negotiations. Amusing though he can be, it may not be the best idea to have a pathological boaster with a charisma penalty handle your negotiations. He claimed that the party sorcerer, Kechara, could call lightning from the sky, something that Lucius promptly asked to see demonstrated. As Kechara could not, in fact, do any such thing (yet), the negotiated fee for their services suffered somewhat.
The fee settled, the party traveled up river to the village of Myre, situated at the edge of the forest. Their contacts there were Alian, a local “leather merchant” who relied totally on his apprentice to do any actual leather working, and the huntress who had actually spotted the darkwood grove in question. Her directions to grove were not exactly precise: “Travel upstream to the first tributary from the north bank, follow that to the rocky strand with the waterfall and turn west on the game trail until you see a hill with a limestone outcrop. From there you’ll be able to see the grove.”
Those simple directions would require a DC 15 Survival check for every landmark to avoid getting lost, not to mention a DC 15 Knowledge (nature) check to recognize the darkwood grove from a distance when looking for it from the hilltop. I figured this would be a chance for either the druid, Eileen, or Wellby to shine. As it turns out, Eileen has a Survival check of around +11, so navigating to the darkwood grove was a piece of cake for her. I was hoping the party would blow at least one of the Survival checks, as I was going to inflict a random encounter on them every time they failed one, but Eileen never missed a step.
The threat at the grove was a group of Twigblights, small plant creatures from the Monster Manual II that like to fertilize themselves with fresh blood. These are CR 1/3 creatures, and knowing the devastating nature of Krag, I threw ten of them at the party (although they didn’t all enter combat at the same time). According to the encounter calculator, this would be a “very difficult” fight, but it turned out to be only moderately difficult, at most.
So the most interesting part of the evening turned out to be earlier, in Myre, when Wellby got drunk, annoyed pretty much everyone, and was knocked out by a frustrated Krag. To relieve their frustrations, the other party members dumped Wellby into a horse trough to sleep off his drunk. Upon waking, he decided to break into the inn and “tea bag” Krag, but didn’t move quietly enough. Krag flung him across the room, where he was pummeled into submission by irate inn patrons and sent to the village lockup for the rest of the night.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
After a Long Absence
Yes, it’s been very nearly a month since I last posted. A rather full month, as it turns out. Early in February, I got laid off. This was particularly annoying, since during the interview process the company had explained at length that they wanted someone who would stay full time rather than run off after other opportunities within a few months. Nonetheless, when the economy started to sour, I rather suddenly became less of a necessity and more of an expensive luxury.
Fortunately, I hadn’t burned any bridges with my previous employer, so I was able to get another job offer within a week. I’m now back with my previous company, earning more than I earned from them before, but not as much as I was getting from the company that laid me off. Still, I’ll be able to pay the bills, so I’m not going to complain overmuch.
That said, the upheaval has upset my life somewhat, and having various cars suddenly need repairs hasn’t helped. The most annoying downside, however, is that I won’t be able to go to Gulf Wars this year. This will be the first Gulf Wars I’ve missed since I started seriously playing in the SCA, so I’m more than a little bummed. Maybe things will settle down enough for me to go to Pennsic, instead.
Saltare came and went during the job crisis, and I did manage to go to that, so I have a few pictures to share.
Fortunately, I hadn’t burned any bridges with my previous employer, so I was able to get another job offer within a week. I’m now back with my previous company, earning more than I earned from them before, but not as much as I was getting from the company that laid me off. Still, I’ll be able to pay the bills, so I’m not going to complain overmuch.
That said, the upheaval has upset my life somewhat, and having various cars suddenly need repairs hasn’t helped. The most annoying downside, however, is that I won’t be able to go to Gulf Wars this year. This will be the first Gulf Wars I’ve missed since I started seriously playing in the SCA, so I’m more than a little bummed. Maybe things will settle down enough for me to go to Pennsic, instead.
Saltare came and went during the job crisis, and I did manage to go to that, so I have a few pictures to share.
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Thursday, January 29, 2009
104th Skeptics’ Circle Posted
The 104th Skeptics' Circle is now online at Space City Skeptics. I made a contribution (been a while), but if you're finding about the Skeptics' Circle here, you've already read my article by now.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Food Porn: Kålrot
So, with a bit of help, I managed to make kålrot this evening. It was an excuse to cook with a rutabaga. I've never had rutabaga... it seemed like a good idea at the time. We doubled the recipe, so it turned out to be...
- 2 teaspoons of dried beef bouillon
- 1-1/2 cups of water
- 6 medium carrots, chopped
- 2 large leeks, including the green, chopped
- 3 cups of rutabaga (worked out to one rutabaga, actually), peeled and cubed
- 1-1/2 lbs. of bratwurst
- Salt and pepper to taste
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The Chief Thrusts
A Right Stock, or Stockata, is to be put in upwards with strength and quickness of the body, and the guard for the putting in a stoke is leaning so far back with your face and body as you can, and the hilts of your rapier so near the ground, or so low as you can, but of this guard I have spoken sufficiently already.
A Slope Stock is to be made unto your enemy’s breast or unto his rapier shoulder if he looks over his rapier, but in putting it in, you must wheel about your rapier hand towards your left side, turning your knuckles inward, this thrust being put in slope-wise as aforesaid, will hit your enemy which lies upon the Cross guard or the Careless guard or the Broad ward, when a right stock or plain fore right thrust will not hit.
An Imbrokata is a falsifying thrust, first to proffer it towards the ground so low as your enemy’s knee, and then presently put it home unto your enemy’s dagger shoulder or unto any part of his dagger arm, for he will put down his dagger to defend you feigned thrust, but cannot recover his dagger again before you have hit him in the dagger arm, shoulders, or face, whether you will yourself, for in proffering this thrust, the is no way to defend the upper part, the dagger being once down, but only with the single rapier, and except a man expects it, it cannot be so defended either.
A Reverse is to be made when your enemy, by gathering in upon you, causes you to fall back with your right foot, and then your left foot being foremost, keeping up your dagger to defend and having once broken your enemy’s thrust with your dagger, presently come in again with your right foot and hand together, and so put in your reverse unto what part of his body you please, for it will come with such force that it is hard to be prevented.
The Mountanto is to be put in with a good celerity of the body and in this manner; you must frame your guard when you intend to charge your enemy with this thrust, bear your rapier hard upon or so near the ground as you can, lying very low with your body, bowing you left knee very near the ground also, and either upon your enemy’s thrust or in lying in his guard you may strike his rapier point toward you right side with your dagger so that it may pass clear under your rapier arm, and with the same motion as you strike his rapier, suddenly mount up your rapier hand higher than your head, turning your knuckles upward, but turn the point of your rapier downwards over his rapier arm into his breast or shoulder, and you must be quick in the performances of this thrust, and likewise nimbly must you leap out again. This thrust must be put in by stepping forward of your left leg: now if you use this thrust more than once, your enemy will expect your coming aloft with him as you did before, but then put it in the second or third time underneath, and you shall hit him about the girdle-stead, and so because at this time I will not be over tedious I leave to speak of many other thrusts.
--Joseph Swetnam, The Schoole of Defence, Chapter 12 (1617)
A Slope Stock is to be made unto your enemy’s breast or unto his rapier shoulder if he looks over his rapier, but in putting it in, you must wheel about your rapier hand towards your left side, turning your knuckles inward, this thrust being put in slope-wise as aforesaid, will hit your enemy which lies upon the Cross guard or the Careless guard or the Broad ward, when a right stock or plain fore right thrust will not hit.
An Imbrokata is a falsifying thrust, first to proffer it towards the ground so low as your enemy’s knee, and then presently put it home unto your enemy’s dagger shoulder or unto any part of his dagger arm, for he will put down his dagger to defend you feigned thrust, but cannot recover his dagger again before you have hit him in the dagger arm, shoulders, or face, whether you will yourself, for in proffering this thrust, the is no way to defend the upper part, the dagger being once down, but only with the single rapier, and except a man expects it, it cannot be so defended either.
A Reverse is to be made when your enemy, by gathering in upon you, causes you to fall back with your right foot, and then your left foot being foremost, keeping up your dagger to defend and having once broken your enemy’s thrust with your dagger, presently come in again with your right foot and hand together, and so put in your reverse unto what part of his body you please, for it will come with such force that it is hard to be prevented.
The Mountanto is to be put in with a good celerity of the body and in this manner; you must frame your guard when you intend to charge your enemy with this thrust, bear your rapier hard upon or so near the ground as you can, lying very low with your body, bowing you left knee very near the ground also, and either upon your enemy’s thrust or in lying in his guard you may strike his rapier point toward you right side with your dagger so that it may pass clear under your rapier arm, and with the same motion as you strike his rapier, suddenly mount up your rapier hand higher than your head, turning your knuckles upward, but turn the point of your rapier downwards over his rapier arm into his breast or shoulder, and you must be quick in the performances of this thrust, and likewise nimbly must you leap out again. This thrust must be put in by stepping forward of your left leg: now if you use this thrust more than once, your enemy will expect your coming aloft with him as you did before, but then put it in the second or third time underneath, and you shall hit him about the girdle-stead, and so because at this time I will not be over tedious I leave to speak of many other thrusts.
--Joseph Swetnam, The Schoole of Defence, Chapter 12 (1617)
Monday, January 26, 2009
Show Me the Magick
As you may have noticed, I recently sold out and put Google ads on the Saga. I guess it was inevitable that some peculiar advertisers would start showing up there, given the Saga’s content. I mean, it’s a natural consequence of articles about D&D and the like that I get ads for people selling spell-casting services, right?
When Decca saw an ad pop up for “Magicks of the World”, she couldn’t resist checking it out. Honest, Google guys – I did not click on that link myself.
That said, I wouldn’t feel particularly guilty if I had clicked on that link: “Magicks of the World” doesn’t look like the gold standard of business ethics. For starters, they claim to have a 100% money-back guarantee, but there’s no link to the terms of that guarantee anywhere on the home page, and I’ve yet to find them anywhere else, either.
This site sells spell castings with prices ranging from about $40 to nearly $660 (and I daresay you could make a special request for something even more expensive). They also point out that multiple castings are likely to get better results.
And if that’s not ethically dubious enough for you, let’s look at some of their spell offerings (I know I’m emphasizing the worst the site has to offer, but still).
The site has a heap of testimonials, of course, but we all know how little that means. Given all the promises being made, it shouldn’t take much effort to produce some genuine statistical evidence of how effective these spells really are. Here’s an easy idea; take 100 people who are going gambling in Las Vegas, randomly use the “Vegas Victory” spell on half of them (without telling which ones get the spell, of course), and see if the “spelled” ones statistically win more money than the “un-spelled” gamblers. Of course, running a test like that (under neutral observation) would actually require confidence that these spells really work.
Oh, and “Madaam Glass” has the gall to run her own “scamblog” to help you tell the real psychics from the fakers.
By the way, I took the liberty of doing a domain lookup on Magicks of the World. It's address is a post office box, and the email addresses are random strings: wlm7Xi@privacypost.com and 9tlR1e@privacypost.com. Why not "admin@magicksoftheworld.com" and "tech@magicksoftheworld.com". For a psychic with a 100% guarantee of her powers, she sure likes her anonymity.
EDIT: A little further Googling has discovered a number of articles that suggest that Magicks of the World is just the latest in a series of scam websites run by the same con artist(s).
When Decca saw an ad pop up for “Magicks of the World”, she couldn’t resist checking it out. Honest, Google guys – I did not click on that link myself.
That said, I wouldn’t feel particularly guilty if I had clicked on that link: “Magicks of the World” doesn’t look like the gold standard of business ethics. For starters, they claim to have a 100% money-back guarantee, but there’s no link to the terms of that guarantee anywhere on the home page, and I’ve yet to find them anywhere else, either.
This site sells spell castings with prices ranging from about $40 to nearly $660 (and I daresay you could make a special request for something even more expensive). They also point out that multiple castings are likely to get better results.
WE RECOMMEND MULTIPLE PURCHASES IN ORDER TO TACKLE A PROBLEM FROM MULTIPLE ANGLES! PLEASE INQUIRE IF YOU NEED HELP SELECTED WHAT MIGHT WORK TOGETHER BEST, AS SOME SPELLS DO BETTER THAN OTHERS WHEN PURCHASED TOGETHER!Wait a minute, aren’t these things 100% guaranteed? Why would you need multiple castings if a spell is guaranteed to work? Curious, that.
SOMETIMES IT IS BEST TO PURCHASE MULTIPLE COPIES OF THE SAME SPELL. THIS WILL UPGRADE THE POTENCY OF THE WORK, WITHOUT THE HASSLE OF TRYING TO SELECT A NEW ANGLE. WE WOULD ALSO BE HAPPY TO HELP SELECT THE ANGLES FOR YOU, IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH US.
And if that’s not ethically dubious enough for you, let’s look at some of their spell offerings (I know I’m emphasizing the worst the site has to offer, but still).
SECRET AFFAIR SEDUCTION SPELLEven if I thought these spells would actually do anything, I’d consider them unethical. Since I don’t think they’ll have any effect whatsoever, it’s more a matter of the site taking people’s money for nothing. I mean, the site owner may go through the motions of a spell casting for each purchase, but why bother? It’s not like they’re going to have any real effect. Heck, someone who would buy a spell to break up someone's marriage probably deserves to be ripped off.
If you have your eyes set on someone specific, and really want to have an affair (or a random affair/one night stand) This is DEFINITELY for you! This work will bring you your affair naturally, whether you know the desired sexual friend, or wish to have a random stranger.
SEDUCE A PROFESSIONAL OF CHOICE SEX SPELL
Do you have a student you really wish you could have an affair with? Is there a teacher or boss of yours out there, who REALLY would make a good here and there lover? Do you REALLY want to jump the bones of a co-worker, nurse, or doctor? This work is definitely for you and your fantasy!
BREAK THEM UP LOVE SPELL
Are there two people together who you KNOW are not right for one another? Do you feel that a couple is doing no good together and just meant to be apart? This spell will help right these universal errors of certain flings!
MAKE LOVE DIVORCE LOVE SPELL
Is your lover in a bad marriage? Do you want to be their one and only without the interference of their toxic relationship? Break it up!!
MARRIAGE ON MONEY LOVE SPELL
Do you often wish that you had a rich spouse that would take care of everything for you? Do you envy women with husbands that make a lot of money? Get your own now!
VEGAS VICTORY MONEY SPELL
Do you ALWAYS feel down on your luck? Do you gamble all the time, but NEVER seem to win ANYTHING? In fact, you lose FAR MORE than you can afford? Do you wish you could be the person to win win win? This spell can definitely change your luck!
The site has a heap of testimonials, of course, but we all know how little that means. Given all the promises being made, it shouldn’t take much effort to produce some genuine statistical evidence of how effective these spells really are. Here’s an easy idea; take 100 people who are going gambling in Las Vegas, randomly use the “Vegas Victory” spell on half of them (without telling which ones get the spell, of course), and see if the “spelled” ones statistically win more money than the “un-spelled” gamblers. Of course, running a test like that (under neutral observation) would actually require confidence that these spells really work.
Oh, and “Madaam Glass” has the gall to run her own “scamblog” to help you tell the real psychics from the fakers.
By the way, I took the liberty of doing a domain lookup on Magicks of the World. It's address is a post office box, and the email addresses are random strings: wlm7Xi@privacypost.com and 9tlR1e@privacypost.com. Why not "admin@magicksoftheworld.com" and "tech@magicksoftheworld.com". For a psychic with a 100% guarantee of her powers, she sure likes her anonymity.
EDIT: A little further Googling has discovered a number of articles that suggest that Magicks of the World is just the latest in a series of scam websites run by the same con artist(s).
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