Hi placoderms,
Did a chatbot pass the Turing Test, this year?
'Turing Test 2014'
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/turing-test-2014/
Well, frankly, no -- what a let-down -- but how did it fail?
The idea of the Turing Test was always a nebulous one, ever since Turing himself presented it. The general jist is that a synthetic (human-designed) entity has passed the test, when it can fool people into thinking that it is a real person.
The trouble with it has always been this... people cheat.
Even to this day, half a century later (Turing predicted it would be a whole century until the test were passed) all such attempts are made in text only.
Why? Because synthetic voices still sound obvious, and are largely still augmentations of real people's voices; and because android faces are even less realistic than that, to this day!
This means a low bar for computer programs to step over. Especially when the arbitrary figure of 30% is chosen, as a proportion of judges to fool (50% would have meant half thought the chatbot were human, and the other 50% thought the human were the human).
It would be more reasonable to set it up above 45%. And that's lenient. I mean, how many times do you find yourself chatting with a real person, and start wondering whether they're actually a robot?
This 'attempt' scraped an unconvincing 33%, and that's considering that the claimants went one extra bar-lowering step further than all other Turing Test claimants to date:
The chatbot, named Eugene Goostman, was handed the task of impersonating a thirteen-year-old Ukrainian boy.
Yes, you read right! And no, the test was not held in Ukraine - it was held in London, the (currently-U)K, at the Royal Society, and organised by the quackery and hate-speech loving University of Reading.
So what the chatbot essentially managed to do, was to convince 10 out of 30 people that it could speak in broken, juvenile English, for 5 minutes, better than whomever their human competitor was.
There's quite a lot of wiggle-room in there, isn't there. One fewer people convinced, and the chatbot fails; expectations of a foreign child's English set slightly higher, and the chatbot fails; put up against someone with better communication skills, and the chatbot fails; required to talk for longer, in order to show more flaws and give the judges more time to think... and the chatbot fails.
So that's how the Turing Test was not passed, this week. But i bet it's one of those stories that'll become a factoid, marketed by the University of Reading for all it's worth, just like the University of Leicester's done with their random-skeleton-in-a-hole-must-be-a-medieval-king-cos-otherwise-we're-all-bonkers-wibble-wibble-wibble story.
If Turing's right, many of us might see his famous test genuinely passed, within our lifetimes. But at the rate technology's advancing, it's a few years off yet...
Here's a story that's just too awesome not to chat about:
'David and Goliath: How a tiny spider catches much larger prey'
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-david-goliath-tiny-spider-larger.html
The minute, 3-millimetre Zodarion cyrenaicum spider, has been observed, both in a lab and in the wild, in Israel, attacking and overcoming ants more than five times its size - up to 17mm. Take a look at a ruler - that's a big size difference!
Of course, it does this by using a potent venom, that disables its prey, through just a single bite; but it came as a surprise to the researchers, to realise that even tiny juvenile Z. cyrenaicum spiders would attack ants of the Messor arenarius species, which is always much larger than itself.
This means they're capable of producing this deadly concoction from a very early age. The venom glands of adult ant-eating spiders are more than 50 times larger than those of the juveniles, however, it only takes about twice as long for the venom of the younger spiders to take effect.
But it has also been observed that the smaller spiders, even of this species, are more successful at hunting smaller varieties of ants, in which the venom would reach vital areas faster.
Most hunting spiders in the area typically only take on ants of comparable size to them, at any age, but only Zodarion cyrenaicum consistently takes on individuals of the same ant varieties, even though they're all much larger than themselves!
Previous work by the same team has shown that adult females of the Z. cyrenaicum species attack from behind, and then quickly retreat, whereas the smaller juveniles cling on to the gaster, inject their venom, and cling on, undetected.
I'm so glad i'm not an Israeli ant :-D
And on to yet another wonderful exploration through...
Placoderm porn :-D
Placoderms were the first jawed vertebrates, living in the oceans and rivers and lakes of the Earth, 430-360 million years ago. Dunkleosteus, for a huge example, grew to the size of a bus, and had gigantic jaws that could envelop a small car.
But as well as being incredibly scary, they were also the first to use extra limbs as 'claspers' to cling on to sexual partners, during fertilisation.
Modern fish mostly just squirt their reproductive juices into the same patch of water, and see what happens, but fossil evidence shows skeletally-controlled sexual organs, in placoderms - the first species ever to undergo copulatory sexual reproduction.
Modern sharks use cartilaginous claspers, near their pelvic fins, but placoderms used proper boney limbs, like mini-legs useful only for sex.
This new discovery implies that the so-called primitive way of vertebrate reproduction – spawning in water – changed dramatically to copulation almost as soon as vertebrates had the right tools for the job.
So there you go -- the seas were a sexy place, even 400 million years ago!
In other news:
For the first time, ever, the transit of a planet has been seen, from a planet that is not Earth! NASA's Curiosity Mars rover caught a couple of images of Mercury, passing in front of the Sun, on the 3rd of June. Because Mars is much further away than Earth, Mercury looks even smaller from the rover's Mastcam - one-sixth of one pixel, in fact. The next time a Mercury transit will be visible from Earth, is the 9th of May, 2016; but you will have to wait until November of 2084 to see Earth transit the Sun from Mars!
http://youtu.be/jFpY4TQ3P7E
NASA scientists have also used two giant ground-based RADAR telescopes to image a 370 metre-wide asteroid, passing Earth 1.4 million kilometres away! And they've compiled their images into a short video of it, rotating for 4.5 hours. The asteroid was at its closest on the 8th of June, when it was 1.25 million kilometres away, and so poses no threat to us at all. You can see the video, at the link:
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-giant-telescopes-pair-image-near-earth.html
German journalists have launched a crowd-funded web-newspaper, intended to provide an alternative to the derivative, corrupt, sensationalist and/or duplicitously advertorial newspapers that are currently gaining power and control, even in web publishing. There are 28 journalists behind the project, called Krautreporter, and supporters, who each pledged 60 euros, will receive at least four in-depth, ad-free articles a day for a year. I don't sense Murdoch, Rothermere, or the Barclay Brothers quaking in their jackboots, though. But it's still early days for a journalism revolution!
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-german-journalists-crowd-funded-magazine.html
Researchers at Imperial College London have developed a strain of mosquito that produces 95% male offspring. If upped to 100%, and reproductively successful when released into the wild, it could be used to eliminate the species that most carries malaria, and thereby the disease itself. Even if it isn't true that the species will adapt to select for reproductively viable males, is it really the best option to eliminate an entire species, just because it carries another that harms us? The same bone of contention lies behind the subjects of bat, and badger culls. Culling vectors, however, is a very selfish tactic - it's lazy, and disregards the fact that the whole point of our efforts is to protect humans - the only unculled vectors of a cornucopia of diseases!
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-scientists-malaria-carrying-mosquitoes-lab-male-only.html
Astronomers have discovered such a tiny star, that it might be the smallest possible size of star. Called '2MASS J05233822-1403022' or 'J0523' for short, it shines an 8,000th as brightly as the Sun; but that necessarily means that it will shine for longer, because it means its fuel will last longer. Hotter, brighter stars, last just hundreds of thousands of years, as they consume their hydrogen fuel quickly, but J0523 might last trillions! J0523 is a brown dwarf star, which means it's right on the edge of starriness - any smaller, and it wouldn't be able to fuse hydrogen, by squeezing it together under its own mass, and so it wouldn't shine, and would just be a big, gassy planet, like Jupiter. And that's why J0523 might be the smallest star possible.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/06/11/the_brown_dwarf_limit_astronomers_have_found_the_smallest_star_known.html
Taking a break from the intense scienceyness of this week's mentions, comes this pressing news story: Peppa Pig has been stopped at Customs! No, no for trying to enter a Jewish/Islamic country, but for breaching Intellectual Property law. It was a suit, ordered for a summer fundraising fair, in England, via eBay, but was stopped by Customs for being an inauthentic, China-manufactured design! Oh well, never mind...
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/playgroups-summer-fundraiser-thrown.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'Making The First Move'
http://youtu.be/S3ERMRsBQaY
'HOW TO MAKE A McDONALDS CHEESEBURGER'
http://youtu.be/lt6lWxPANG8
'World of Batshit - #2: Moon Loons'
http://youtu.be/1xIt1N3CBXE
'Love Me Tinder (E. Costes / A. Gogny-Goubert)'
http://youtu.be/MM7WUO8wnA4
'ScienceCasts: Solar Mini-Max'
http://youtu.be/8Ha7X6dWVQE
'Niobium (new) - Periodic Table of Videos'
http://youtu.be/2ciPAsVTq6c
'Acoustic Dispersion in a Spring'
http://youtu.be/KbmOcT5sX7I
'Swimming ant is Michael Phelps of the insects'
The trap-jaw ant can swim ten times as fast as Olympic champion Michael Phelps, scaled to its body length, and can jump with its mouth!
http://youtu.be/2UoL1saxJ1U
'Solar Roadways: so stoopid its FUNNY!!'
http://youtu.be/KI8c2f8r0UU
'Jay Foreman - We're Getting a Super Soaker'
http://youtu.be/vO-bfrYTIfw
'THE LOVING PET OWNER: FITNESS | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/9F8WHWkJCrY
'THE CATCH: WOOLWORTHS HAND BLENDER & MINI CHOPPER | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/n14AK4_sZNE
'SUPERMARKET SUPERHIGHWAY | The Checkout | ABC1'
Jules goes into the ups and downs of shopping online, compared to shopping 'in the flesh'. You might be surprised by the outcome!
http://youtu.be/zNHzem21v9g
'SIGNS OF THE TIME | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/4ZUC3osFFEE
'How to keep your beer cold this summer'
http://youtu.be/y4gg1lPL36w
{This advice works with any cold drink}
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: adorkable -- socially inept or unfashionable in a charming or endearing way (recently added to the Collins English Dictionary)
Fact Of The Week: There is such a thing as 'secondary drowning', and also such a thing as 'dry drowning'. The medical definition of 'drowning' is "the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid" and so 'secondary' or delayed drowning, is when the effects of water inhalation do not become lethal until later on; and 'dry' drowning is where the windpipes close off to prevent water getting in, but also prevent breathing, causing asphyxia.
Scientific Journal Of The Week: Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis
Quote Of The Week: "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown" - Carl Sagan
Joke Of The Week: "When i die, i want to go peacefully like my grandfather did - in his sleep. Not yelling and screaming, like the passengers in his car." - Bob Monkhouse
Book Of The Week: 'Ventriloquism for Dummies'
Most Adorwable Video Of The Week: 'Asian Small-Clawed Otters Celebrate Enrichment at the Smithsonian's National Zoo'
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
Impressions!
Apparently, Cumbers Bumbers Wumbers does a damn fine impression of Alan Rickman:
'Benedict Cumberbatch's greatest ever impressions'
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-06-09/benedict-cumberbatchs-greatest-ever-impressions
But of all the impressions linked in that article, i reckon his Alan Rickman impression's probably the worst.
Why? Because he doesn't get that jawwy roll, like what other impressionists have got, in their Alan Rickman impressions. Take John Sessions's's's, for example...
'QI: John Sessions impersonates Alan Rickman'
http://youtu.be/5BYeI6Cn6dk
Or my favourite - Phil Cornwell's - on Dead Ringers...
'Battle to the death: Token British Bad Guys - BBC comedy'
http://youtu.be/dQHtQqbJqhE
Phil's might not be super-realistic, but like Harry Enfield's on 'Spitting Image', he takes a character and makes a good caricature of it. Just like he does with his 'Greg Dyke' (Michael Caine) impression:
{At the time, there was no call for a Michael Caine impression. There was, however, a call for a Greg Dyke impression... someone no-one would or could ever recognise, and so... voila! Someone i shall call Gregael Dykaine was born}
The Michael Caine impression that everyone knows (and can do, i suspect) is based on one line, in one film, shot half a century ago; but that doesn't stop them.
'This Is How Michael Caine Speaks - The Trip - BBC Two'
http://youtu.be/HFIQIpC5_wY
I reckon Rob Brydon's impression's better, as an impression, because it's actually based on how Michael Caine actually is and actually talks. Whereas Steve Coogan's is more of a Cornwellian caricature.
But you know who does a damn good impression of Michael Caine? Michael Caine...
'Michael Caine does Michael Caine'
http://youtu.be/rX0F3kY3uxU
'e only went an' blew the bloody doors off my mind... [sniggers] :-D
[dies of shame]
'What do you see?'
Nice ch-ass-t!
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/what-do-you-see/
'20 Epic Watermelons'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/weird-foods/20-epic-watermelons/
'25 Photos Of Shadows That Tell A Different Story'
http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-shadow-photo-fails/
'10 Honest Company Slogans'
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2014/04/09/10-honest-company-slogans/
'That's An Old Photo'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/88719263156
From Private Eye's YouTube channel:
'Nigella's Christmas Turkey'
http://youtu.be/aK4hRRBGloU
'Pinter's Christmas Carols'
http://youtu.be/FQQC2gW0JYw
'Dumb Britain'
http://youtu.be/DcJxJRtZJB0
You're going to have to turn your sound up for these. But they are hilarious :-D
'Harold Pinter's Nursery Rhymes'
http://youtu.be/v1tmxXIBxCo
'Today On Radio Phwoar!'
http://youtu.be/a21X473Pc_g
'Colemanballs'
http://youtu.be/LTRSY06pcNE
'Dumb Britain I'
Hopalong lesbians, LOL
http://youtu.be/3Vx9Nvm-XtQ
'Dumb Britain II'
http://youtu.be/K_p-itYUgiM
..
Hi princesses
Richard Dawkins has been in the News, again, this week. And guess what for... that's right - something he didn't say.
And we all know what that means, don't we, children. That's right - moronic, bilious Dawkins-baiting! And i love making fun of idiocy, so here goes...
What he did not say, was that telling children stories was a bad idea. What he did say, was that the specific genre of Fairy Tales inculcates children with worldviews in which they think supernatural bollocks can or does happen.
And it seems every village idiot and his dog has jumped up to make fallacious arguments in their defense. The deceitful, supernaturalistic Fairy Tales, that is - not the guy every priggish wanker loves to hate.
"A degree of magical content supports imaginative development" said an epidemiologist, superstitiously, and thereby betraying the whole point of her career.
"and the transmission of the story is important as it creates intimacy, routine and a bonding experience" she continued. All these things can be had with realistic stories, which the Dawkster was expressly not condemning.
{Note: modern journalists are notorious for quote-mining - the researcher might not even have known her statements were being used to contradict RD}
'Dr David Kirby, a researcher on science and public life from Manchester University, points out that Dawkins himself is able to distinguish between fiction and reality, despite being told stories as a child.'
Yes, Dave - 'despite'. 'DESPITE'. That means his ability to distinguish reality from fantasy was held back by his parents lying to him, at an early age, when he didn't know reality sufficiently well to realise that he was being lied to. Your argument is self-decapitating!
'Little Red Riding Hood, he says, is "essentially about telling young girls to stay away from strange men".'
What, you mean like the huntsman? The story warns Little Red Rising Hood to stay away from wolves; and she is rescued by the huntsman, who is rewarded with... a kiss. From a young girl. The strange man, in this story, is made out to be the hero! Of all the examples he could have come up with, he picks that one - it's like he chose to commit polemic suicide.
"Tropes such as 'once upon a time' or 'in a far-away land' mean that these stories often begin with an introduction that immediately flags up that these are things do not occur in everyday life and help a child to inquire into what is real and what's not." says Sally Goddard Blythe, the author of a bullshit book
Once again, another prize pillock has managed to provide an example that contradicts their own argument!
Both these clauses do not suggest fantasy - they suggest a real world that's just somewhere or somewhen else, so that they can't be visited. And if they can't be visited, they can't be verified.
[But why would mum read me this story if there weren't a point to telling a completely invalid tale that couldn't be verified? Ah, i know - because mummy's trying to tell me that baseless rumour is a good thing to pass off as veritable. Yay :o) ]
"Fantasy and myths can even help children think outside the box and make the sort of leaps that lead to scientific invention and discoveries." says the article author.
Oh, i see - because arbitrary moral authorities like Mother Holle are incredibly stimulating to invention, aren't they. Grown-up programmes like Star Trek have been hailed as prophetic, because they invented props that stood in for technologies of convenience - mobile phones, tricorders, and the not-yet-existant teleporters.
What they don't help with, is when a witch just magics something to happen, completely bypassing the mechanism in the middle that might stimulate someone to work out how it could happen in real life.
Plus, this completely misses the point that Fairy Tales are not about blue-skies innovation - they are about social ethics.
The vast majority include magic in some way, invoked by a magical character - a kindly fairy or obscure strange man (I hope you're listening, David Kirby) or a wicked witch, bent only on evil - who bequeaths either great physical, monetary, or social wealth on characters that are 'nice' or horrid disfigurements and suffering on those who are 'bad'.
-- In 'The Golden Goose' for example, Dummling meets a strange man in the forest, whom he is nice to, and so he is rewarded with the Golden Goose, marriage to a princess, and thereby wealth beyond his dreams for the rest of his life. Moral of the story: be overly trusting and philanthropic towards strange men, and you'll become king despite the hereditary nature of monarchism.
-- In 'Rapunzel' a man steals rapunzel for his pregnant wife (hence the name of his daughter) from the garden of an evil witch, who claims Rapunzel as reparation. When a dashing prince discovers her, he tries to rescue her, and so the witch blindens him and takes Rapunzel away. Through magicky luvvy-duvvyness, the prince finds her again, and her tears magically give him sight back. Moral of the story: theft should be met with disproportionate punishment, and magic can repair senses. Oh, and lots of bits of silk work better than a rope!
-- In 'Table Lay Yourself' a deceitful goat meets its comeuppance, and three hard-working sons are rewarded with magic gifts, two of which are stolen by a selfish innkeeper, the third of which is used to punish him with a savage beating. Moral of the story: lies will leave you worse off than before, and selfishness too - both of which should be punished with excessive violence.
-- In 'Jack and the Beanstalk' a strange man engages in a fanciful deal with a young boy, which rewards immense wealth, through theft from a horrid ogre, who is eventually murdered. Moral of the story: mountebanks sometimes pay out, and an appropriate way to get rich, is to steal golden eggs and abduct singing harps from people who 'live in the sky' (you don't know much about).
-- In 'The Good Fairy' a fairy gives a beautiful and polite girl a reward for having a horrid step-mother and step-sister, which involves gems falling from her mouth when she speaks. Fanchon - her step-sister - is punished for rudeness, with snakes and toads falling from her mouth instead. Moral of the story: rich people got that way from being nice and obsequious; poor and lonely people got that way from being brusque.
-- In 'Mother Holle' ...it's pretty much the same.
-- In 'The Three Little Men In The Wood' ...well, same again.
All the way through them, however, there is a consistent and nefarious equivocation between moral goodness, and physical beauty. To this day, albinos are cast as evil creatures in films, and baddies as horribly disfigured. Is this the 'thinking outside the box' that the Dawkins-bashers are thinking of?
I think not. Albinos are treated with outrageous discompassion in various parts of the world - not just Hollywood.
But i think it's pretty clear that if Fairy Tales have the power to corrupt young minds in Practice, as well as Theory, they have long been superseded by Film & TV. Within which, there is a huge equivocation between moral character and outward appearance/demeanour. 'Nice' characters are happy and chirpy, and 'bad' characters are dark, brooding, and furrow-browed.
In the most melodramatic of soap operas, scowls are such a staple, that there is rarely an opportunity for cast members to separate their eyebrows from their top lips.
J.K.Rowling nicely turned this on its head, by making Dolores Umbridge a sickly sweet, chirpy character, and Severus Snape a dark, brooding, and surprisingly good guy.
Where do i fall on the subject of telling Fairy Tales to kids? Well, i think i've largely given that away already. But lies are OK, as long as they're not deceitful...
I don't curse Rowan Atkinson, because Blackadder's not real - the whole point of fiction is that we're all engaged in the pretense. But if a Fairy Tale is not told in that vocalised context - that none of it's real - then we're leading our kids (and hence our future adults) astray. All of the protestations come from contemporary adults, who were weaned on bullshit, as children.
And as for the idea that we should 'test' their ability to tell fantasy from reality... does anyone ever really ask their kids whether believed all that nonsense? I don't think they do, so that's not a practically relevant question. But even if it were, i think there are much better ways to demonstrate that adults lie - by showing them the real world, not a fantasy one!
More from the Beeb's Magazine Monitor: this article is the very definition of pretentiousness :-D
'Smashed Hits: Another Star'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27737858
And on to the 'World Cup 2014'
No, don't be silly - it's not a glazed pottery competition - it's a Soccer competition.
As i had to explain to somone else, recently, Soccer is a kind of football. And football is a game that involves feet. That's why it's called 'football'. There's Rugby (League and Union) Football; there's Aussie Rules Football; there's American Football; and there's Association (from which the term 'soccer' derives) Football. These are the most popular, but there are others.
Uniquely, soccer is the only one of these to completely forbid (most) competitors from using their hands, which profoundly limits the application of skill that the sport can involve. All around the world, football is a game that pretty much everyone can play. Everyone can grab a synthetic pig's bladder and knock it around a field/alleyway/kitchen; but somehow, even professional soccer players can't entirely resist their instincts to put their hands out. Oh dear :-/
And yet, weirdly, it is a sport that has the highest ratio of viewers to players. A game like snooker will often be viewed by ~100 people. That's 50 spectators per player. Whereas a WC match - that's World Cup, not Water Closet - will have at least 1,000 spectators per player.
It just gets even weirder, when you consider that, well, not much happens. In fact, there's no guarantee that a single goal will be scored, in more than an hour and a half of play, in a league or round-robin match.
It contrasts quite starkly with a racquet sport, in which the whole point is to exploit the dexterity of hands, while still using the feet for moving around; and the scoring system means points can't not be scored!
But how has soccer succeeded in garnering this popularity? Well, basically through being the most derivative, basic, easy-to-engage-in sport going. It's the cut-price lager of the sporting world. That's probably why Carlsberg cashes in so much :-P
And that brings me on to the subject of advertising.
The Water Closet 2014, as with so many before it, has benefitted from completely free (and paying) advertising, through companies that wish to associate themselves with it, on the grounds that it has pre-existing popularity.
And because so many companies will spend millions on advertising campaigns, using the WC as a marketing tool, even more people know about it, and so the tool itself is strengthened, providing ever more reason for companies to use the WC as a marketing tool in future. It's like a self-fulfilling prophesy.
'Google maps World Cup soccer venues'
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-google-world-cup-soccer-venues.html
'Physicists test aerodynamics of soccer ball types prior to World Cup (w/ Video)'
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-physicists-aerodynamics-soccer-ball-prior.html
In fact, i'm bearing it out myself, right now :-D
The more other people try to cash in, the more cash FIFA can reel in, too. In fact, the sport itself seems rather superfluous, doesn't it!?
But something that's not a self-fulfilling prophesy, is the idea that WCs will necessarily make people's lives better... well, WC toilets will, if they need better sanitation, but World Cups don't.
And they don't necessarily benefit the lives of species that they've employed as mascots.
Scientists have challenged FIFA to use their massive earnings to help Fuleco - their Cup mascot - and the armadillo species Tolypeutes tricinctus, which has recently been reclassified from 'vulnerable' to 'in danger'. That's worse, BTW.
Brazilian scientists wrote, in Biotropica "As football fans and conservationists, we challenge Fifa and Brazil to set an ambitious mark: at least 1000 hectares of Caatinga declared as protected area for each goal scored during the 2014 World Cup"
That would mean about 170,000 hectares of Caatinga (the kind of forest in which the real Fuleco lives) set aside for conservation. If FIFA doesn't (and they haven't yet responded to the challenge) then their mascot might easily become a character based on an extinct species.
'Row over protection for World Cup mascot armadillo'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27639051
Pseudoscience story of the week:
Is it true that lady-named hurricanes are more deadly than manly-named hurricanes? Some people seem to think so.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/06/02/hurricane-female-names-deadly/9868413/
They've been claiming that it's caused by people perceiving ladylike hurricanes to be less intimidating, and so they've done less to avoid it, resulting in more deaths.
But there are huge problems with this 'study':
- The data runs from 1953 onward, and yet all hurricane names were female until 1979, since when they've alternated male and female gender
- The claimants weren't using a binary male/female system - they were using their personal perceptions of masculinity/femininity in names, even for the all-female 1953-1978 period (so Victoria was perceived less feminine than Camille)
- Removing just Hurricane Sandy swings the correlation in favour of 'manly' hurricanes being deadlier
So basically, what this means, is that the signal - the actual correlation between 'femininity' and deadliness - is incredibly weak, in order to be changeable by one data point. And weak correlations are much more likely to be a fluke.
It also means that the calibration system is incredibly subjective, in classifying names by sexist perception. That means the researchers could easily warp their perceptions, in their mind, to fit their prejudices.
So all that's happened, with this 'research' is that some sexist people saw exactly what they wanted to see - validation of sexism, by the populist fallacy.
Are lady-named hurricanes really more dangerous? Na-ah.
Not-quite-on-this-days:
The 7th June 2014 was the 261st anniversary of the founding of the British Museum - one of the most awesome museums in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_museum
The 5th of June is World Environment Day, and WED 2014 was marked by a new World Record for people hugging trees simultaneously. 2001 people hugged trees in a park outside Nepal's capital city - Kathmandu - for two minutes. Most were school children, but some lawyers turned up too. Guinness World Records will get back to them within a couple of months; but for now, the record officially stands with 936 people in Oregon, in 2013.
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-nepalese-tree-huggers-world.html
On Friday, the 6th of June 2014, the CIA joined both twitter and Facebook. So now the world can voyeurise their daily regimens, for a change. "We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet," the Central Intelligence Agency quipped on its newly minted official Twitter page. Within two hours of the post, it received around 90,000 retweets and the CIA counted 115,000 followers. The Twitter Government and Politics team welcomed the posting with a #BestPractice hashtag for being "creative with your first tweet."
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-cia-twitter-facebook.html
In other news:
The face of Jesus on a rusting air conditioning unit? Pareidolic superstition, yet again. And, of course, also another arrogant theistic wanker, claiming to be able to recognise someone they've never met :-D
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/man-has-found-face-of-jesus-on-rusting.html
Why isn't this also considered to look like Jesus? It's just as valid. You can't prove he didn't look like that, LOL
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-scream-appears-in-tree-stump.html
Propaganda from the American Beverage Association has 'found' that people lose more weight, if they drink soft drinks. Unsurprisingly, the claim comes with false validity, as 'research' funded by the ABA! This goes to show the deeply corrupting nature of industry funding. Research funded by industry simply can't be trusted due to the inherent and often incredibly obvious biases introduced into the data. I mean, come on - soft drinks help you lose weight? Absurd, and certainly not evidential!
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/27/health/diet-soda-weight-loss/
Harvard has 'confirmed' that it has books bound in human skin. I'm afraid this isn't really news, but the Media seems to think it is, so what the hell. And they're always right, right? Anthropodermic bibliopegy, as it's known, has been conducted since at least as far back as the 17th century, sometimes as a post-mortem punishment but also as a poetic tribute or maybe macabre curiosity. Harvard's 'Des destinées de l’ame' comes with this description: "A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman." Funky stuff :o)
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/houghton/2013/05/24/bound-in-human-skin/
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-harvard-antique-bound-human-skin.html
But if you think that's weird, then read this: a half-biological-half-engineered ear, suspended in nutrients solution, sits in the ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe. Why? It's a replica of the ear Vincent van Gogh half-severed, more than a century ago. The great-grandson of his brother, Theo - Lieuwe van Gogh - donated cartilage cells, to grow the biological bits. Even weirder: visitors can speak to the ear, through a microphone! The ear goes on tour - to New York - in 2015 :-D
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-replica-van-gogh-ear-germany.html
A swarm of grasshoppers so large that it was picked up on weather maps, has been flying around New Mexico, USA. The meteorologists knew they weren't looking at rain, because the particles were not uniform, and moving differently - in fact, they contemplated whether their equipment was broken - until they realised they were looking at a swarm of grasshoppers!
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/massive-swarm-of-grasshoppers-picked-up.html
A species of bat that was last recorded in 1890 has been caught in a trap, by researchers, once again. After 50-60 years of not being seen, a species is reclassified as 'extinct' but this, of course, can be overturned. This species lives in the hugely biodiverse rainforests of Papua New Guinea, where many more entirely-new species are discovered, every year. Unfortunately, the number of species that disappear off the map is also far greater than those that turn up, out of the blue, after 124 years! Conservation work continues, to learn as much as can be found, about this bizarre and wonderful species, in order to best preserve them, and t least get to know them before they disappear forever.
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-extinct-rediscovered-years-wilderness.html
The oldest trousers ever found, have turned up in an excavation of the Chinese Yanghai graveyard, in the Tarim Basin. Carbon-14 radiometric dating has dated them to ~3000 years old. Historians believe they would likely have been used to assist in horse riding, to reduce chafing. If true, then such garments might have been worn for a millennium by the time these pair were made, as horseriding existed in the region since 4000 years ago. There's a picture of them, at the link:
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-year-trousers-chinese-grave-oldest.html
I've reported on the Solar Impulse solar-powered aeroplane on this blog, before, and so i shall report on its successor - Solar Impulse II, too. It carried out a test-flight on Monday, and is due to far outperform its predecessor. SI1 managed a 26-hour flight (day and night) and SI2 is expected to do a 120-hour flight (also non-stop) allowing it to do trans-atlantic and trans-pacific journeys. And all with the power of the Sun - no fossil fuel burning :o)
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-swiss-made-solar-plane-maiden-flight.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'Captain Hook, Darth Vadar and Blofeld send their apologies'
http://johnfinnemore.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/captain-hook-darth-vadar-and-blofeld.html
'John and Kevin's Sunday Papers - June 2014'
http://youtu.be/gTz_jrrp8Yw
'Jay Foreman - Stephen Hawking's Secret'
"Jay wrote that especially for us" Yeah, that's why he uploaded it to YouTube :-D
http://youtu.be/mQIBLU8wto0
'Seth MacFarlane performs his Family Guy voices - The Graham Norton Show'
http://youtu.be/B6vmGabgzH4
'A. Murray v. F. Verdasco 2014 French Open Men's R4 Highlights'
http://youtu.be/khlUOE5MXDY
'Porsche Panamera S e-Hybrid | Fully Charged'
A hybrid Porsche, selling at £80,000, test driven by Bobby Llew. Nice :o)
http://youtu.be/PJJbQBMbURA
'Your Family Tree Explained'
http://youtu.be/PM79Epw_cp8
'Lo-Fi Augmented Reality!'
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/lo-fi-augmented-reality/
'D Day Science - A Week in Science'
http://youtu.be/o5_U3AtlYsk
'A Rattling Good Read'
The stuff in this video just gets better and better and better :-)
http://youtu.be/JUl87I4ln-o
'Bites, Stings, Spines, and Spurs - Venom Delivery'
http://youtu.be/BjVfZr8UlpE
'Afterlife is Meaningless Without Afterafterlife'Theology is its own refutation, LOL
http://youtu.be/CZplzRg6ZP4
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: découpage -- the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cut-outs to it, maybe in combination with paint effects, gold leaf, etc
Etymology Of The Week: utopia -- coined by Thomas More in 1516, for his book about a perfect place; but from the greek roots 'ou' and 'topos' meaning 'not' and 'place'; 'utopia' therefore means 'nowhere'. often mistaken for 'eu-topos' where 'eu' would mean 'good'. the word 'dystopia' was fallaciously developed as an antonym to the original, in meaning 'bad place'
Fact Of The Week: In the Bahamas, there is a population of pigs that can frequently be seen swimming in the clear caribbean waters around the island called 'Pig Beach'. It should not, however, be confused with the 'Bay of Pigs' which is on the opposite side of Cuba, and in fact a mistranslation of 'Bahía de Cochinos' where 'Cochinos' refers to the Orangeside triggerfish (Sufflamen verres).
Film Review Of The Week: Grace Of Tax Avoidance
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
As is common in the world of YouTube, a channel has uploaded a bunch of videos all at once. Here are some of the videos recently uploaded by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science:
'Richard Dawkins: Vestigial Organs: The Wings of the Flightless Cormorant'
http://youtu.be/k8OMpfBQR4E
'Richard Dawkins: Insurance Policy: Two Eggs, One Survivor'
http://youtu.be/E97toOkc0zc
'Richard Dawkins: Show Me the Intermediate Fossils! - Nebraska Vignettes #1'
http://youtu.be/DP53WAkQ5Yc
'Richard Dawkins : Comparing the Human and Chimpanzee Genomes - Nebraska Vignettes #3'
http://youtu.be/WMPlr4tD64A
'Richard Dawkins : Ants That Farm, Compost and Weed - Nebraska Vignettes #4'
http://youtu.be/KmAJVy3U-SA
'Richard Dawkins: Diatoms: The Evolution of a New Species - Nebraska Vignettes #5'
http://youtu.be/75LyR3fv0xM
'Richard Dawkins: Hawaii as a Nursery of Evolution - Nebraska Vignettes #6'
http://youtu.be/nCaXt3LsqZc
'Animals In Space'
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/88068340145/animals-in-space-via-cibermitanios-all-of
'Hyper-realistic Ballpoint Pen Art'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/unusual-art-and-fashion/samuel-silva-makes-art-with-ballpoint-pens/
'Massage By a Burmese Python, Anyone?'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/crazy-animals/massage-by-a-burmese-python-anyone/
'Poor Tim'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/87536128521
'Ecs Men'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/88130539342/ecs-men
'What Does the Spleen Do? ft. Harvard Medical School'
FYI: this is a parody of Ylvis' 'What Does The Fox Say?' :-P
http://youtu.be/aEi_4Cyx4Uw
..
Greetings, disembodied voices,
Happy Birthdays to you, and to me :o)
The question of the week:
When you read something, is your internal voice male or female?
Personally, i read in any internal voice that seems to suit the writing. If i know the writer's voice, i'll think in that; if i don't, i'll make one up from the context; and if i don't even have that, well, i'm rendered pretty much illiterate :-P
What about you? And what voice are you reading my blog in? :-D
'Jon Culshaw impresses the News on The Now Show (30th May 2014)' (my upload)
http://youtu.be/Kb4hc9ufpcI
'UKIP voters determined to overcome challenge of drawing an ‘X’'
http://newsthump.com/2014/05/22/ukip-voters-determined-to-overcome-challenge-of-drawing-an-x/
'Two thirds of people lying about how racist they are'
http://newsthump.com/2014/05/29/two-thirds-of-people-lying-about-how-racist-they-are/
About a month ago, Bobby Llew wrote about Jezzer Clarkson's mumbled maybe-racism...
'I'm a bit racist and....'
http://llewblog.squarespace.com/journal/2014/5/2/im-a-bit-racist-and.html
... and he advised thusly:
"How many times have we heard the clichéd phrase ‘I’m not racist but...’ It is only used by people who are blatantly racist and go on to make some crass generalization about a group of people who are a bit different to them... So, instead of saying, ‘I’m not racist but’ we should maybe modify the cliché to being, ‘I am a bit racist and’..."
I don't agree with everything Bobby wrote then, but maybe such a relearning of linguistic norms would be useful?
Answers on the back of a postcard, please... :-P
Language is one of those interesting things, though. There's the technical meaning of the word - it's actual definition - and then there's its connotation. Both of which are subject to change, over time.
People have taken both progressive and regressive steps with various words, in the past. They can become insults, and they can cease to be insults. 'Spastic' used to be a technical term, and gained an insulting connotation; whereas 'gay and 'dyke' and 'queer' came to be used as insults, but since reclaimed as terms of endearment, within anti-anti-Queer sub-cultures.
All words that are currently considered to be insulting, had to become so, through associations, and so will not necessarily continue to be considered insulting, for all future!
This arbitrary nature of 'insultingness' shows up in global studies of linguistics. Where a word is utterly benign in some places, it is deemed hugely profane in others. All that differs, is the listener's beliefs, and the speaker's perceived intent.
Thunderf00t goes into this, with specific examples, in the video 'Things you C*N'T say!' listed in 'contemporary stuff'...
In other news:
A bikini has been developed, for women who have had mastectomies, and can't find swimwear that fits them. The designers have called it the 'monokini'. There are pictures at the link:
http://informoverload.com/bikinis-for-woman-with-1-boob-monokini/
But even better than that, is a swimsuit for people who want to show what's deep inside, beyond the external beauty, deep down, where all the organs are. That's right - i give you, the internal organs swimsuit:
http://technabob.com/blog/2014/05/13/internal-organs-swimsuit/
Is this the oldest example of a false tooth, ever found? Inside the richly-furnished timber burial chamber of a 20-30-year-old Iron Age (~2300 ya) woman, excavated in Le Chene, northern France, archaeologists found an almost complete set of teeth. When they came to take a proper look, later, they noticed there were only 31, but with an iron pin showing up in pictures of the excavation, where an upper incisor should have been. The archaeologists have speculated both that the La Tene Celts' interactions with Etruscans might have hinted them to the technology, and that iron's less-than-stable nature in the damp environment of the mouth, might have caused infection and the woman's hastened death. Dentistry itself is known to date back to ~7500 ya (years ago) in the Egyptian/Near-East region.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27587104
Students have 'accidentally' found a 7000-year-old mummy, in Chile, at the site of the famous Chinchorro mummies - the oldest mummified remains yet known, and all dating to about 7000 years old. They found the remains as part of an archaeology workshop, that was making use of a recent 8.2 magnitude earthquake to excavate the upturned ground.
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-students-year-old-mummy-chile.html
Europe-wide research has found that lighter-coloured damselflies and dragonflies are being favoured by the changing climate. With the increasing temperatures, lighter colours are more thermodynamically favourable, because they reflect more sunlight than darker colours. Consequently, species such as the Southern Migrant Hawker (Aeshna affinis), the Scarlet Darter (Crocothemis erythraea) and the Dainty Damselfly (Coenagrion scitulum) have advanced northward across Europe. The last of these has made a return to the UK, after a 50 year absence. Butterflies that thrive in warmer climates have also advanced northward.
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-light-colored-butterflies-dragonflies-european-climate.html
Research has found the earliest example of an avian pollinator of plants, known to date - the 47-million-year-old fossil remains of a bird, with pollen grains still sitting in its stomach. It's known that insects pollinated plants, through 100-million-year-old fossils, but the previous oldest for birds was 30 million years.
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/87494692455/47-million-year-old-avian-pollinator
Psy's 'Gangnam Style' has become the first video on YouTube to reach two billion views! Naturally, the achievement of reaching this arbitrary numerological boundary has been met with pretentious posturing from Humanities graduates, who think they have valuable ideas about how that thing what happened has happened like what it did. An exemplar: "'Gangnam Style' actually pokes fun at how the common man fantasizes about life in the fast lane, as symbolized by the ritzy area in Seoul known as Gangnam" - an analyst in the 'renowned' Harvard Business Review
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-psy-gangnam-style-galloping-youtube.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'Things you C*N'T say!'
Warning: this video contains language that can be perceived as insulting, within particular cultural contexts :-P
http://youtu.be/KbG8DvRKoJw
'Solar FREAKIN Roadways, are they real?'
Note: this is not the same subject as the fluorescent roadpaint, which is definitely real.
http://youtu.be/H901KdXgHs4
'Repeat after me'
Look at all these ignorant sheeple... well, sheep :-P
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/repeat-after-me.html
'The Amazing Pink Cup'
http://youtu.be/oKouLKT1vXQ
'Parade'
Interactive art, where the sculptures are stationary but their shadows dance
http://vimeo.com/96615251
'R.Gasquet v. C.Berlocq 2014 French Open Men's R2 highlights'
http://youtu.be/eORk9JLbGa8
'J.-W. Tsonga v. J. Janowicz 2014 French Open Men's R3 Highlights'
http://youtu.be/JPIjj3SUuUQ
'ScienceCasts: The Milky Way is Not Just a Refrigerator Magnet'
http://youtu.be/HxqctkvlTtw
'A Journey into a Galaxy Collision'
Stunning images!
http://youtu.be/BS21QuX_tGU
'The Full Monty - Numberphile'
A very good explanation of the Monty Hall Problem
http://youtu.be/7u6kFlWZOWg
'Why do women feel the cold more than men? - A Week in Science'
http://youtu.be/uM2JBkfYOZA
'THE CONSUMER DICTIONARY: FRESH | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/z-pRAvjkqIo
'F.U. TUBE SERIES 2 EPISODE 14 | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/9YvBcfa4nHw
'THE CATCH: KOGAN HEART RATE MONITOR WATCH | The Checkout | ABC1'
http://youtu.be/iHHSiqNWfLU
'Unfinished London - Episode 3 (part 1)'
Just 3 years after Part 2 of the Unfinished London series, Jay Foreman returns with some wonderful historical detective work :o)
http://youtu.be/AbAal7jIWQ4
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Word Of The Week: Farage -- to masturbate in an angry and confused way using unconventional stimuli, as in "Mark's Wife was furious when she caught him having a farage over a picture of Ann Widdecombe"
Etymology Of The Week: comet -- from 'kometos', greek for 'nice long beard' because the coma of a comet stretches away from the sun, like an old man's grey beard
Quote Of The Week: "The world of experimental physics is littered with people who spent decades looking for something that doesn't actually exist. It's just been a really incredible experience to actually find what you're looking for" - Clement Pryke, University of Minnesota, commenting on the observation of gravitational waves, earlier this year
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'Change the speed with your mind'
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/change-the-speed-with-your-mind/
'Spurious Correlations'
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/87014790045/spurious-correlations-correlation-does-not
'Unbelievable Ceramics!'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/unusual-art-and-fashion/unbelievable-ceramics/
'15 Very Poor Business Logo Choices'
http://www.mandatory.com/2014/05/28/15-very-poor-business-logo-choices/
'When Dogs Fly: Base Jumping!'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/crazy-animals/when-dogs-fly-base-jumping/
'The Floating Skate Ramp'
http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/incredible-feats/video-the-floating-skate-ramp/
'Topless Photo'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86003972801
'King Dong'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86603449411
'Old Spice On Twitter'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86003506796
'I Will Destroy You'
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/85702394766
'Yahoo! Questions'
All these questions are so dumb that it's difficult to tell whether they're sincere or not. In the context of religion, this is known as Poe's Law :-D
http://goldspandexleggings.tumblr.com/post/86401850261
'Robert Llewellyn - Electric Cars Are Rubbish. Aren't They?'
A very entertaining talk by Bobby Llew, at the Head of Steam, in Liverpool, for the Merseyside Skeptics, and whomever else turned up. It's 2 hours long, btw. Delve deep :-D
http://youtu.be/6q7_xN0ilag
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