DmitryBrant.com

A while ago I posted a couple of articles about Tachyon Energy, which is a relatively new development in the “field” of new-age self healing pseudoscience. I had hoped that this would be just a negative blip on an otherwise upward trend towards rationality and reason among the general population. Of course I was mistaken — interest in Tachyon products is strong as ever, and the Tachyon distributors are continuing to diversify their products in more shapes, sizes, and colors.

Recently I communicated with a gentleman from Germany by the name of Samvado Gunnar Kossatz, who is apparently a noted Tarot Card enthusiast, having published his own set of Tarot cards. Mr. Kossatz claims that Tachyon products helped to completely alleviate his back pain, as well as keep him free of back pain for almost ten years.

Mr. Kossatz has revealed to me that he will conduct a series of experiments to test the efficacy of various Tachyon products (using his own funds, no less)! This certainly piqued my curiosity; I invite everyone to keep track as these tests proceed. I hope that Mr. Kossatz performs the tests in an unbiased, scientific manner, in spite of his conviction that Tachyon products healed him many years ago.

His test protocols can be accessed here. Unfortunately, the protocols are in German, as I’m sure the test results will be. I will try to post translations of relevant portions as time permits. According to his page, the tests should be completed by September 12. This may prove to be quite interesting.

On my recent trip to Reykjavík, Iceland, I made it a point to visit a very famous hot dog stand called Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur (Best Hot Dogs in Town). This hot dog stand, voted the “best hot dog stand in Europe” by The Guardian in 2006, has had quite a few famous visitors (as shown below), and some not-so-famous visitors (also shown below).

I will honestly admit that it was one of the best damn hot dogs I have ever tasted, although now I wish I had gotten a cup of Coke, too.

Those who know me personally know that I’ve been wearing braces for the last three and a half years. For those who don’t know me personally, no, I’m not 14 years old! The decision to get braces was a “better late than never” sort of thing.

Anyway, let me assure you that wearing braces for three and a half years was no picnic. But nothing — no previous agony that I’ve endured in life — could prepare me for the removal of the braces, which is what happened today.

When I got the braces, I chose to have the standard metallic ones on the bottom teeth, and the clear (ceramic) ones on the top teeth. The bottom brackets came off without a problem, although at several points I wondered whether it was the bracket that snapped off, or half of the tooth.

Removing the top ceramic brackets was where it got interesting. Apparently, the ceramic brackets do not simply come off like the metallic ones with minimal torque. Instead, the doctor uses a special instrument to crush the bracket right on top of the tooth which it’s attached to. The doctor then proceeds to snap off the remaining shards of the bracket, and then sands down the remnants of the adhesive compound.

It’s hard to think of an analogy for the blinding, overwhelming pain of this particular experience. I suppose it might be similar to the feeling of actual teeth being crushed, but probably not as bad, since all my teeth miraculously stayed intact, despite my fears otherwise.

So, if I can give one bit of advice for anyone thinking of getting braces:

For the love of god, the lord Jesus in heaven above us, never get the clear braces, unless you’re willing to suffer through the act of removing them.

or What America is in Danger of Becoming

Apparently several disgruntled fundamentalist christians have set up their own “alternative” to Wikipedia that they’re calling Conservapedia (subtitled “A conservative encyclopedia you can trust“). Their biggest gripes with Wikipedia appear to be their perception of a “liberal bias” in Wikipedia, as well as Wikipedia’s use of C.E. (Common Era) in dates instead of A.D. (Anno Domini). In short, the authors of Conservapedia fear that Wikipedia is becoming “increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American.”

No doubt, Conservapedia was founded by a couple of angry guys whose edits on Wikipedia got deleted for being too preachy and uncomfortably fundamentalist. The guys may have even been cranky enough to get banned from Wikipedia altogether, which is what probably gave them the bright idea to start their own encyclopedia, so that subsequent generations of fundies can be as ignorant and hypocritical as they are.

After a few minutes of browsing Conservapedia, it becomes clear that 90% of its articles are one-liners (these are articles where the authors don’t care to make a political statement). All of Conservapedia’s articles on Biology, Chemistry, and Physics are one sentence long, and appear to come from a series of textbooks by Jay L. Wile, a conservative christian author whose books urge their readers to study science, but only while wearing the dunce-cap of biblical inerrancy and basking in the glory of the lord-our-god.

In the articles where it does attempt to make a statement (that is, articles that are longer than one sentence), Conservapedia offers us nothing more than the usual regurgitations of creationist arguments that have long been discredited and put to rest. These include old-time favorites like “no transitional fossils,” “irreducible complexity,” and other arguments favored by creationist all-stars like Kent Hovind and Ken Ham.

What really disturbs me is the mind-boggling hypocrisy of Conservapedia. The authors complain that Wikipedia has a “liberal bias,” and that its editors regularly edit articles to have a decidedly “anti-christian” tone. This is certainly not true, but we’ll come back to that. The point is, even if Wikipedia displays some kind of bias, it’s blatantly obvious that the bias seen in Conservapedia is vastly greater! We can guess with some certainty what would happen when someone adds content to Conservapedia that doesn’t conform exactly to their infallible beliefs.

Conservapedia actually has a page that lists all of the purported “examples of bias in Wikipedia.” My first thought was, “What credible encyclopedia goes out of its way to show how it’s better than other encyclopedias?” My second thought was even better: “An article entitled ‘Examples of bias in Conservapedia’ would pretty much contain the entire website!”

Wikipedia is not anti-christian. It is, by definition, not biased at all. If a certain article appears to have an “anti-christian” tone, it is precisely because the editors removed a pro-christian bias from the article.

I agree that Truth is not a democracy. However, there is such a thing as scientific consensus. Many of the people who edit Wikipedia articles are experts in their respective fields, like biology, chemistry, physics, and history. These people are qualified to represent the current scientific consensus on various matters, including evolution, origins of the universe, abortion, gay marriage, Christianity’s influence in the Renaissance, etc. (These are all subjects that the Conservapedia authors have a hard-on for disputing).

Religious rants from fundamentalists belong in personal web pages and blogs (of which there’s no shortage, I assure you), or better yet, stored away safely in the minds of religious fanatics. They certainly don’t belong on websites that claim to be a source of actual information for the general public.

Looking at Conservapedia, I can see many disturbing parallels between it and the current state of affairs in the United States. It is exactly this kind of thinking, this kind of hypocrisy and ignorance, that will eventually revert this free and enlightened nation to a 15th-century theocracy where atheists and any other non-christians will be burned at the stake once more. Of course I’m exaggerating, and I’m by no means fearful for my life at this point, but I do get a chill down my spine when I see yet another website showing that such beliefs still exist in the 21st century.

… unless the whole thing is a hoax, in which case, well-played!

I finally downloaded the Express edition of Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, and started a long-overdue peek into the much-hyped .NET technology. Up till now, most of my code has been plain C++ with straight Windows API calls. I generally stay away from languages that remove the programmer from the underlying architecture. But I must say that programming .NET has been nothing but a pleasure so far, despite the cons of .NET programming, of which there’s also no shortage.

I was actually pretty surprised that the Express editions of all .NET languages (VB, C++, C#, and J#) are freely downloadable and, for all intents and purposes, fully functional.

My first stab at programming VB.NET is a simple Mandelbrot Set viewer:

Download the program! | Browse source code repository

The total time to get this program written was about 25 minutes, which says a lot about the possibilities for tremendous productivity using .NET, although this application hardly scratches the surface of .NET functionality…

It’s pretty hilarious watching the nation’s reaction to the bomb scare in Boston. Supposedly city officials are prepared to charge Turner Broadcasting $500,000 to pay for the police and bomb squad response.

I hope this doesn’t affect the release schedule of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Colon, Movie Film For Theaters. Hopefully, if anything, ticket sales resulting from this ingenious advertising campaign will make up for it!

It looks like, in our “post-9/11 world,” there’s no end to the irrationality and paranoia that people will succumb to, just because they can’t find anyone else to blame.

The other day I was out at a local sushi restaurant (Pacific East on Coventry) with a good friend of mine. The sushi at this place is consistently outstanding and impossibly fresh.

This occasion was no different, at least with respect to the food. About halfway into the meal, I couldn’t help but notice the music playing in the background — it was a slow and thoroughly depressing violin solo, and it sounded strangely familiar. We quickly realized, almost simultaneously, that the music was actually the soundtrack from Schindler’s List.

And then, of course, I remembered the old adage,

Nothing livens up a fresh sushi dinner like the soundtrack of Jews suffering in Auschwitz gas chambers!

Seriously, though, I don’t know how this soundtrack got into their playlist (a practical joke, perhaps?), but I hope they phase it out of their rotation next time I’m there.

In yet another friendly religious debate, I was given the argument that goes something like, “How do you know that _____ _____ existed?” The blanks can obviously be replaced with any prominent historical figure who is no longer living. On this occasion it was George Washington. This argument is quite weak in itself, since it is not even an argument for or against the existence of God (or Jesus); instead, it argues only that human knowledge is fallible, therefore no fact can be absolutely certain, indirectly leaving a little room for the possibility of a god.

The response to this kind of argument is three-fold. First, we have thousands of instances of indirect evidence that supports the existence of George Washington in the form of biographies, paintings, and letters, as well as documents and letters written by the man himself. It’s highly unlikely and unnecessary for all of these sources to have conspired to invent a non-existent first president of the United States.

The second part of the response is perhaps the most important: George Washington never claimed to be able to break the laws of physics! There are no claims of Washington parting seas, curing the blind, or turning water into wine. If such a claim had been made, we would undoubtedly need some truly convincing evidence, like confirmations of the observed phenomena by the greatest scientists of the time (emphasizing their inability to explain the phenomena), as well as experimental data on repeatability and consistency of Washington’s powers.

The third part of the response is a bit more subtle, but also very important. Believing in the existence of George Washington is not integral to the understanding of reality. History is reevaluated all the time. One day, historians might even discover that Washington was a hoax, and never existed as a real person. However, this kind of finding would have no effect on the foundations of physics, cosmology, or biology. The existence of Jesus, however (especially the god-man Jesus of the Bible) would have profound consequences in many scientific disciplines. The fact that the Bible is the only (second-hand) source that attributes supernatural powers to Jesus makes for particularly weak evidence for his divinity. If there was a single manuscript claiming that George Washington had magical powers, I would undoubtedly want evidence that is as credible as the claim is outlandish. Wouldn’t you?

One of the recent television commercials for the U.S. Navy depicts two police officers in their cruiser, patroling a shady urban neighborhood. Suddenly they pick out a boy in a group of friends, and call him over to the vehicle. One of the police officers points to his laptop, annoyed, saying, “It, uhh… it crashed again.” The boy glances at the laptop screen and says proudly, “Reboot with F8 in Safe Mode.”

Now, it is true that pressing F8 during the boot sequence will allow you to enter Safe Mode. However, going into Safe Mode is a very temporary measure, and by no means the solution to the underlying problem! Booting into Safe Mode should only be done in the most extreme situations (e.g. a malfunctioning video driver), and should never be used for anything except repairing critical errors in the operating system, and then making sure the computer can boot back into normal mode.

The Navy-bound computer whiz-kid should never have let the officer drive off with the computer still in Safe Mode. If anything, the officer will encounter more problems (or at least annoyances) trying to work in Safe Mode than working normally with an occasional crash. Is this kid really the kind of person we want working as an Airborne Ops Tech?