http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?slug=dw-wetzel-danica-patrick-daytona-500-wreck-022712
It's funny, being TOTALLY RIGHT. Although this was on the track, it still highlights the point that driving is NOT a completely SOLO task, you share the road with others.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
I'm a race car driver...
http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?slug=dw-wetzel_danica_patrick_lamborghini_mercedes_022012
“I said, ‘I’m a race car driver. I’m not going to hurt anyone out here. I know what I’m doing.’"
Because, apparently, being a race car driver makes all the other people going 50 mph SLOWER than you competent drivers. Because grandma up there in her 1970 Oldsmobile didn't hear you coming up on her, didn't see you in her rear-view mirror... Because deer and other wildlife magically know to avoid you.
Because even though there are laws, you are above them.
Yes, being a race car driver gives you skills, but doing it on public roads is just plain STUPID.
Where could she have gotten this "holier-than-thou" attitude?
"Patrick said she had always gotten out of other tickets, even once when she doubled the speed limit in the Lamborghini."
Oooohh... the cops let her get away with it, so she figured she was immune. Kudos to that one cop for actually enforcing the @$^#ing law.
Dear Danica,
You're driving like a moron on roads with vehicles that have CHILDREN in them.
Will you continue to drive like this when you have a little one(s) strapped in the back of the car?
Will you then curse at someone else who whizzes past you going 2x the speed limit?
Please slow the fuck down. Most people don't keep an eye out for someone who's going 2x the speed limit. You may be able to afford a new car, medical bills and what-not, others can't. You SHARE the road with other PEOPLE (not traffic cones), your complete and utter disregard for other drivers well-being is sickening. While you may be highly competent, others are not; your careless actions will make any accident many times more severe than it would have otherwise been.
-Me
“I said, ‘I’m a race car driver. I’m not going to hurt anyone out here. I know what I’m doing.’"
Because, apparently, being a race car driver makes all the other people going 50 mph SLOWER than you competent drivers. Because grandma up there in her 1970 Oldsmobile didn't hear you coming up on her, didn't see you in her rear-view mirror... Because deer and other wildlife magically know to avoid you.
Because even though there are laws, you are above them.
Yes, being a race car driver gives you skills, but doing it on public roads is just plain STUPID.
Where could she have gotten this "holier-than-thou" attitude?
"Patrick said she had always gotten out of other tickets, even once when she doubled the speed limit in the Lamborghini."
Oooohh... the cops let her get away with it, so she figured she was immune. Kudos to that one cop for actually enforcing the @$^#ing law.
Dear Danica,
You're driving like a moron on roads with vehicles that have CHILDREN in them.
Will you continue to drive like this when you have a little one(s) strapped in the back of the car?
Will you then curse at someone else who whizzes past you going 2x the speed limit?
Please slow the fuck down. Most people don't keep an eye out for someone who's going 2x the speed limit. You may be able to afford a new car, medical bills and what-not, others can't. You SHARE the road with other PEOPLE (not traffic cones), your complete and utter disregard for other drivers well-being is sickening. While you may be highly competent, others are not; your careless actions will make any accident many times more severe than it would have otherwise been.
-Me
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
No Children.
I remember as a child I expressed, under no uncertain terms, that I did not want to have children when I got older.
Adults, and one of my cousins in particular, jested about how I'd "meet the right woman" and wouldn't keep this opinion.
If it isn't completely obvious from all my posts, I do NOT understand this society/culture. The things I experienced as a child, from other children, is NOT something I would want anyone else to experience - particularly someone I love. To me, having a child is a choice. While biologically I'm programed to want to have children to pass on my genes, I've always thought that part of being a human being is over coming these inherent biological desires - to be more than another stupid animal.
Icing on this cake, is the sheer COST of having children. I won't go into details, there's enough all over the internet.
Adults, and one of my cousins in particular, jested about how I'd "meet the right woman" and wouldn't keep this opinion.
If it isn't completely obvious from all my posts, I do NOT understand this society/culture. The things I experienced as a child, from other children, is NOT something I would want anyone else to experience - particularly someone I love. To me, having a child is a choice. While biologically I'm programed to want to have children to pass on my genes, I've always thought that part of being a human being is over coming these inherent biological desires - to be more than another stupid animal.
Icing on this cake, is the sheer COST of having children. I won't go into details, there's enough all over the internet.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
What's Real?
What is reality? What is real?
Consider an event, for every person who witnesses the event there is a unique perspective/interpretation of that event and sometimes these perspectives don't agree. There must be some SINGLE TRUE narrative of the event, differing perspectives cannot both be true.
Fast Forward to 3:20 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoCqftOYHX4
Humans tend to have difficulty at discounting something they know to be false. (The implications of this for politics and things like global warming are mind bending. In this study, the source of the information discredited the information and there was still bias. What happens when the opposing viewpoint discredits the information? Would it reinforce the bias and make it worse?)
So when people are raised with, say, religion; they have difficulty ever getting out of religion, even though someone can COMPLETELY destroy the logic of religion, the people will still believe something they know to be false. This doesn't even account for the other benefits of religion - social interaction and status... much more, that make it extremely difficult to stop believing.
I know I am human.
I know humans make mistakes.
I know humans who are incompetent assess their capability much higher than it actually is.
The only thing that can be concluded is that, no matter what I think I know, no matter what I think my skills are, no matter how good I think I am, I can never be certain of what I think I know to be true, real.
That is why we have the scientific method - a way of discerning the truth from fiction (so long as it remains objective). So we can say with some degree of certainty that things that come from science are probably more accurate than things that don't come from science.
The only thing that I can conclude is that we are foolishly arrogant. We are petty and incompetent. We run this world like we have absolute knowledge (just listen to any politician speak) and we elect leaders who present this absolute knowledge with the best production value (or who holds the most popular absolute knowledge). Human beings would rather be told they're right than to hear the truth, so this world could be run on delusions, lies and deceptions; and there is nothing any ONE person can do about it. 90% of this world believes in religion. The path of converting a theist to a non-theist is an amazingly difficult and personal endeavor. What of all the other delusions they hold about the world we all share?
Consider an event, for every person who witnesses the event there is a unique perspective/interpretation of that event and sometimes these perspectives don't agree. There must be some SINGLE TRUE narrative of the event, differing perspectives cannot both be true.
Fast Forward to 3:20 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoCqftOYHX4
Humans tend to have difficulty at discounting something they know to be false. (The implications of this for politics and things like global warming are mind bending. In this study, the source of the information discredited the information and there was still bias. What happens when the opposing viewpoint discredits the information? Would it reinforce the bias and make it worse?)
So when people are raised with, say, religion; they have difficulty ever getting out of religion, even though someone can COMPLETELY destroy the logic of religion, the people will still believe something they know to be false. This doesn't even account for the other benefits of religion - social interaction and status... much more, that make it extremely difficult to stop believing.
I know I am human.
I know humans make mistakes.
I know humans who are incompetent assess their capability much higher than it actually is.
The only thing that can be concluded is that, no matter what I think I know, no matter what I think my skills are, no matter how good I think I am, I can never be certain of what I think I know to be true, real.
That is why we have the scientific method - a way of discerning the truth from fiction (so long as it remains objective). So we can say with some degree of certainty that things that come from science are probably more accurate than things that don't come from science.
The only thing that I can conclude is that we are foolishly arrogant. We are petty and incompetent. We run this world like we have absolute knowledge (just listen to any politician speak) and we elect leaders who present this absolute knowledge with the best production value (or who holds the most popular absolute knowledge). Human beings would rather be told they're right than to hear the truth, so this world could be run on delusions, lies and deceptions; and there is nothing any ONE person can do about it. 90% of this world believes in religion. The path of converting a theist to a non-theist is an amazingly difficult and personal endeavor. What of all the other delusions they hold about the world we all share?
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Disappointing (2) ...
I remember hearing about Baby Einstein on NPR a while back...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/education/24baby.html
Yeah.
http://www.babyeinstein.com/refund/
Basically, "Baby Einstein" is a guilt-free baby-sitter for parents. Mesmerizing flashing lights, with the implied claim that playing this video for your child will make them like Einstein.
Where are television companies on this? Where are producers? Where are animation artists? Where are writers?
Isn't it ammoral to continue producing products/shows/movies/etc in such a manner when there is evidence that doing so creates attention problems - to put it more bluntly, changes how the brain functions?
ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR ($@#^ children)!
Disappointing...
http://www.wimp.com/mediachildren/
I'm writing this at work because it (this video) is bothering me so much.
While it's primarily about the effects of media on the brains of children, I think it says an equal amount about our behaviors as humans - this is one of those things that causes numerous dominos to fall over, idea after idea... but I don't have the time to link it all together right now.
Instead, this video reminds me of when I was a child and got to play with some of my friend's brand new toys (he was a spoiled rich kid). I knew the toys from tv commercials - they looked flashy and exciting - but to be in their presence was actually really disappointing. There was no fast music, no flashy quick chaning situations... just this stupid hunk of plastic sitting there. There were times when I was spoiled with a certain toy and it would be disappointing because I didn't have someone to play with. So my perspective of advertising as a child changed to disbelief. I recognized that they made the toys seem as exciting as possible - but in actual practice they were just toys. Having them did not make my life exciting or new or flashy or more important than it was before.
Advertising stopped working on me as a child.
This video, goes FAR beyond just advertising. It answers questions I have been pondering a very long time; are people really all that much more than "dumb animals"? Is our intelligence SO much greater? Are humans more than just underlying programming running through existence (as opposed to being a dynamic intellect capable of re-writing this code)? This video points me in the direction of "No".
More later...
I'm writing this at work because it (this video) is bothering me so much.
While it's primarily about the effects of media on the brains of children, I think it says an equal amount about our behaviors as humans - this is one of those things that causes numerous dominos to fall over, idea after idea... but I don't have the time to link it all together right now.
Instead, this video reminds me of when I was a child and got to play with some of my friend's brand new toys (he was a spoiled rich kid). I knew the toys from tv commercials - they looked flashy and exciting - but to be in their presence was actually really disappointing. There was no fast music, no flashy quick chaning situations... just this stupid hunk of plastic sitting there. There were times when I was spoiled with a certain toy and it would be disappointing because I didn't have someone to play with. So my perspective of advertising as a child changed to disbelief. I recognized that they made the toys seem as exciting as possible - but in actual practice they were just toys. Having them did not make my life exciting or new or flashy or more important than it was before.
Advertising stopped working on me as a child.
This video, goes FAR beyond just advertising. It answers questions I have been pondering a very long time; are people really all that much more than "dumb animals"? Is our intelligence SO much greater? Are humans more than just underlying programming running through existence (as opposed to being a dynamic intellect capable of re-writing this code)? This video points me in the direction of "No".
More later...
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Respect (short)
To start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect This is so very critical to understand.
"Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding."
"The unskilled suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average."
If I were to tell you, "I don't give you respect, you have to earn it", what is my opinion of you, given the two above quotes?
By declaring that someone has to earn your respect, you are declaring that you think they are less than you and need to prove otherwise.
Congratulations, you suffer from illusory superiority, you're probably an idiot...
If you respect other people for no other reason than that they are people... well. You're probably over-estimating them, but the interaction between you and everyone else will be MUCH LESS CONFLICT RIDDEN. Unfortunately, receiving respect is a DISASTER to the human brain, some people view it as submission, others as a threat, and a few sane people will actually appreciate it.
"Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding."
"The unskilled suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average."
If I were to tell you, "I don't give you respect, you have to earn it", what is my opinion of you, given the two above quotes?
By declaring that someone has to earn your respect, you are declaring that you think they are less than you and need to prove otherwise.
Congratulations, you suffer from illusory superiority, you're probably an idiot...
If you respect other people for no other reason than that they are people... well. You're probably over-estimating them, but the interaction between you and everyone else will be MUCH LESS CONFLICT RIDDEN. Unfortunately, receiving respect is a DISASTER to the human brain, some people view it as submission, others as a threat, and a few sane people will actually appreciate it.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Aliens. Um, NO.
I know people who believe in aliens - or rather - believe that we have, at some point in human history, been in contact with aliens. It often comes about when talking about religion, some people want so badly for there to be more to life that they end up retreating to arguments about how the stories in the could be a reference to alien contact in history. "Flaming chariots from the sky" and such nonsense.
What really pisses me off are the actual scientists who make obscure references to the possibility that aliens can/could/may contact us.
There are NUMEROUS things keeping us from aliens and aliens from us, lets take a look at the universe and use what we know to make a determination of the possibility that aliens have been in contact with earthlings.
First off, lets talk about DISTANCE, a one dimensional measurement between two objects.
1 light year = 5,878,625,373,183 miles. Light covers this distance in one year. (On a side note: to show the EXTREME stupidity of people, when I typed in "1 light year equals..." bing gave the suggestion of "1 light year equals how many earth years". A light year is a measure of distance, not a measure of time.)
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity limits ALL possible speeds to the speed of light (approx. 186,300 miles / second - or 5,878,625,373,183 miles in a year).
Our galaxy is approx. 100,000 light years across.
All information in space - light/radio waves/etc - travels at the speed of light. Human beings have been broadcasting into space for approximately 100 years, so the only aliens who could possibly know about us would have to live within 100 light years in order to have received any signals from us.
Looking at Earth from a vast distance (10 million light years away or more) will reveal the state of the planet as it was, 10 million years ago, NOT as it is today. So any alien civilization that exists any more than a few hundred light years away will not know of our existence for a very, very long time, all because of the DISTANCES involved.
The other problem is time.
Consider the approximate age of the universe as we currently understand - approx. 14,000,000,000 years old.
The last 5,000 years or so of human history is hardly even a hiccup on this scale of time. To simply assume that another life form has risen and continued to exist for long enough period of time to advance to the point where they could travel at/near light speed... at a sufficiently small enough distance to be aware of our existence... is absurd.
Finding life in the universe is a lot like trying to hit a moving dartboard that's a mile away, while floating in space, while blindfolded. Hit the board, and you may have found a planet that can support life. Hit the bullseye and you've found a planet with life on it. This does not even necessarily mean that the life on this planet is intelligent, it could be plants only, or something else that we can't even imagine!
Many people will defend their religion, when faced with the admission that it is illogical, some people will argue "aliens" which is something completely undefined (unlike religion). They completely, totally, utterly fail at realizing the size or scope of the universe. When faced with the limitations of physics, they are only left with one argument, "Well, Einstein could be wrong".
Well, yes, he could be wrong. But the option with the greater possibility is that the person making the argument is just plain stupid. I'm sorry to get harsh, but I'm sick of listening to these nonsensical arguments. It's time to start calling stupid, stupid.
What really pisses me off are the actual scientists who make obscure references to the possibility that aliens can/could/may contact us.
There are NUMEROUS things keeping us from aliens and aliens from us, lets take a look at the universe and use what we know to make a determination of the possibility that aliens have been in contact with earthlings.
First off, lets talk about DISTANCE, a one dimensional measurement between two objects.
1 light year = 5,878,625,373,183 miles. Light covers this distance in one year. (On a side note: to show the EXTREME stupidity of people, when I typed in "1 light year equals..." bing gave the suggestion of "1 light year equals how many earth years". A light year is a measure of distance, not a measure of time.)
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity limits ALL possible speeds to the speed of light (approx. 186,300 miles / second - or 5,878,625,373,183 miles in a year).
Our galaxy is approx. 100,000 light years across.
All information in space - light/radio waves/etc - travels at the speed of light. Human beings have been broadcasting into space for approximately 100 years, so the only aliens who could possibly know about us would have to live within 100 light years in order to have received any signals from us.
Looking at Earth from a vast distance (10 million light years away or more) will reveal the state of the planet as it was, 10 million years ago, NOT as it is today. So any alien civilization that exists any more than a few hundred light years away will not know of our existence for a very, very long time, all because of the DISTANCES involved.
The other problem is time.
Consider the approximate age of the universe as we currently understand - approx. 14,000,000,000 years old.
The last 5,000 years or so of human history is hardly even a hiccup on this scale of time. To simply assume that another life form has risen and continued to exist for long enough period of time to advance to the point where they could travel at/near light speed... at a sufficiently small enough distance to be aware of our existence... is absurd.
Finding life in the universe is a lot like trying to hit a moving dartboard that's a mile away, while floating in space, while blindfolded. Hit the board, and you may have found a planet that can support life. Hit the bullseye and you've found a planet with life on it. This does not even necessarily mean that the life on this planet is intelligent, it could be plants only, or something else that we can't even imagine!
Many people will defend their religion, when faced with the admission that it is illogical, some people will argue "aliens" which is something completely undefined (unlike religion). They completely, totally, utterly fail at realizing the size or scope of the universe. When faced with the limitations of physics, they are only left with one argument, "Well, Einstein could be wrong".
Well, yes, he could be wrong. But the option with the greater possibility is that the person making the argument is just plain stupid. I'm sorry to get harsh, but I'm sick of listening to these nonsensical arguments. It's time to start calling stupid, stupid.
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