Thanks Again Science!

What's the smallest thing you have ever seen? Not any more. Scientists from IBM have successfully imaged a single molecule.

I am sorry if the shock and awe produced by this discovery caused anyone to faint, become incoherent or otherwise harm themselves in disbelief. A better introduction might have been "Are you sitting down? No, then find a chair because your mind is about to be blown."

Day Two

Today we discussed the scientific method as an iterative process. Rather than grinding out answers mechanically, the scientific method grinds out experimental results, from which we may infer the answers. Was our initial claim correct? Does that indicate anything about our hypothesis and it's underlying structure? Was there anything we assumed? Most importantly, does any of that affect the possible Truth of my claims? Deciding we needed a better understanding of these things, we called in the big guns, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, et al for next time.

We also mentioned the differences between a hypothesis and a theory, and studied the long and winding road the former travels to become the latter.

Addendum: The analyses of the in-class poem were reviewed and discussed. Excerpts and commentary will be posted soon.

Day One

We constructed twelve randomly selected lines of text, divided into three groups of four. Ostensibly, these are the intro, conflict, and resolution of some internal theme. During our initial pass at understanding (first order approximation) we spotted some common threads.

• Christian imagery
• death and rebirth
• fire and water
• groups of people characterized by following
• suffering and the benefits of eventual discovery

and so on. For next time, we need to start thinking about how to combine these into a coherent theme or "meaning of the poem." Are these the only connections that can be found? Have we utterly exhausted the content of our text? Of course not. As long as we stare at the lines, we will continue to generate connections between varying images in the work.

As we continue to study these things (physical systems) we will get a clearer understanding of what it means to mean something, and how certain we can be that our meanings are real.

Forum for the course

I have set up a forum page for the class, in the event that we need one. If you can think of any subdivisions that would be useful, let me know.

controlmachine.freeforums.org

Go to Hell, Science!

Folks are flocking to the Israeli town of Kiryat Yam to cash in on what I can only call a sure thing. All they have to do is get a photo of the town's mermaid. Simple as pie, folks. Whoever ponies up this reward money is an idiot. How long can this contest take, like 8 minutes? Here's a contest idea for you: "$1,000,000 for any photo of a broken sand dollar!"

In my experience, it's more difficult to take beach pictures without mermaids littering the shot. I have a filing cabinet filled with vacation pictures absolutely ruined by mermaids. Perfect shots of the sun setting over the horizon...marred by comely sea wenches lolling about on the sands. Award winning visions of morning fog slowly fading under the intense gaze of the rising sun...poisoned by the emerging forms of she-fish. At least with jellyfish, you can listen to the radio and get an idea of the population density.

Note: The graphic accompanying this post does not constitute photographic evidence of mermaids.

Link to article (LiveScience.com).

And so it begins...

So a factory worker in Sweden got injured during a run-in with some bit of automated machinery yesterday. Seems innocent enough, I guess. The article is available here. Blah, blah, blah. Industrial accident.

One sentence in the report did, however, catch my eye.

"But the robot suddenly came to life and grabbed a tight hold of the victim's head."

Just so everyone is clear on what happened... A ROBOT CAME TO LIFE AND ATTACKED A MAN. A human man, not some audioanimatronic factory worker that shared a kind of perverse kinship with the malfunctioning (allegedly) assemblage. An actual man. Given that this is in clear violation of every human/robot precept, why is every newspaper not printing full page reports on this, or at least putting out special "Well, we're dead for sure" editions?

These editions/ads wouldn't even need an accompanying article, just a black and white spread (with a quick splash of dark fluid...is it blood, or oil...who can tell) and the words A ROBOT CAME TO LIFE AND ATTACKED A MAN. If I were appointed head of the worldwide media cabal, I would use every drop of ink at my disposal and a font of my own devising, Times New Holy Shit Bold, because this seems like that kind of emergency.

Full Disclosure: I originally designed Times New Holy Shit Bold for use with the potential future headline "Infinite Hamburgers!" It saddens me to think that due to impending robot massacre of the human race, we will never see a day that knows no limit on hamburgers.

Book Review: Seagalogy, by Vern.

If my mind had a wrist, this book would have broken it and thrown me through a window.

I normally don't feel like shadow boxing or meditating on the finite nature of man before reading a book. But this book, this awesome and terrifying book, leaves me more than a little worried that its subject, the likewise awesome and terrifying Steven Seagal, is somehow out to get me (or at least knows I am reading about him). The author applies his “Badass Auteur Theory,” or “the idea that in some types of action or badass pictures, it is the badass (or star) who carries through themes from one picture to the next” to the whole of the seagal's oevre, including musical efforts.

If you doubt the strength of the author's theory, ask yourself how any episode of any show would be transformed by even the most fleeting glimpse of Steven Seagal.

The most effective support for B.A.T., though, is the existence of the book itself. Since Seagal appears in it, it becomes a "Steven Seagal Book" rather than just an extremely readable and entertaining journey through all things Seagal. How about a "dizzying look through the seagalian lens, whose refractory power transforms governments into criminal agencies, submarines into helicopters, ponytails into widow's peaks, and of course, arms into pretzels."