Nitpicking: the blog

You think you know your own brain, but ....

2008-06-25T21:36:00.002-04:00

I'll bet you think you can hear a song and get the words by decoding the sounds, right?

Visit Skepchick and play the video, then come back. I'll wait.

OK, for any literate person reading this: was it possible to hear the real words of the song while reading the captions? I've known those words for literally 30 years and I heard what the captions said. It's amazing.

Why it's dangerous to believe in magic

2008-06-20T07:56:00.002-04:00

"Unfortunately for Colleen and her family she lives in a world where people still believe in magic. They are the victim of a chain of gullbility - people who should have known better victimizing her out of pure stupidity." I couldn't have said it better, so I'll quote Dr. Steven Novella.

To summarize, a psychic told a teacher's assistant that someone whose name starts with the letter "V" was being sexually abused. So the assistant reported that one of her students, Victoria, was being abused. The school board inexplicably called in Children's Aid.

To their credit, Children's Aid promptly found no evidence that anything bad had happened, but everyone in the chain before them behaved badly, from the despicable fraud--sorry, the "psychic"--to the teacher's assistant to the school board. Well, except for poor Victoria and her family, who did nothing wrong.

Cool T-Mobile Feature

2008-06-07T15:22:00.003-04:00

I use a BlackBerry Curve on T-Mobile's wireless network. My plan isn't incredibly cheap: 1000 minutes plus unlimited data (including BlackBerry email, which I actually don't use much) for $80/month. I find it worthwhile, because I like the phone, and that includes using the phone as an EDGE modem (ISDN speed) whenever I'm in an area where I don't have Internet access.

About a week ago, I noticed a feature of my phone and plan that I hadn't realized I had: if I'm in an area with WiFi (802.11 wireless networking) set up, the phone switches to "UMA" mode. That's Unlicensed Mobile Access, a confusing acronym that refers to the sending of voice calls over the Internet rather than the cellular carrier's separate network. It's a species of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).

What does this actually mean? It means that if I'm at home, anywhere that has public WiFi, or the I-CON office, my calls travel over the WiFi network and then the Internet instead of T-Mobile's network. I get higher sound quality, and also coverage in places that the cell network doesn't reach well, such as basements and many buildings with steel structures.

And there's no additional cost. The calls do come out of my monthly minutes pool, but I never come close to using that up.

So this whole blog post is just a "thank you" to T-Mobile for letting me use this excellent service.

Journalism is dead

2008-06-07T13:14:00.003-04:00

Remember when reporters used to do things like ask questions and think?

Actually neither do I, but I remember when that was the ideal.

Jacksonville's firstcoastnews.com reports that Mr. Anthony Brown is close to having his car run on water. Brown explains that he splits "... the water from the oxygen from the hydrogen ..."

This is gibberish. Water IS hydrogen and oxygen. And yes, you can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but you will ALWAYS use more energy to do so than you get back by burning the hydrogen. Second law of thermodynamics.

What gets me isn't Mr. Brown's being either a charlatan or self-deluded (the only two choices), it's that the reporter, Angela Williams, didn't bother to so much as wake up before writing it. A real journalist would have covered, for instance, a charlatan's looking for "investors" (suckers), but Ms. Williams is either utterly incompetent or simply very lazy.

(I'm compulsively fair: it's also possible that Ms. Williams' editor is looking for meaningless puff "human interest" pieces, which makes him the person deserving the abuse, not her.)

It's distressing.

It's rays! The rays are hurting me!

2008-05-26T18:01:00.002-04:00

According to KOB TV in New Mexico, a group in Santa Fe are suing the town under the Americans With Disabilities Act, charging discrimination because of their medical condition?

Their condition? They have health problems caused by WiFi, and the city is using it in public buildings.

Microwaves don't do that. They just don't. Even if they did, why pick on 802.11 networking? Why not also try to eliminate every other device that uses the same frequencies? Maybe because eliminating cordless phones, microwave ovens, and Bluetooth headsets would be, um, impossible? Or maybe the "electro-sensitive" people are just too ignorant to realize they all use the same frequency?

I do not believe the ADA protects people with their real condition, delusional hypochondria.

My thanks to the Obstreperous Curmudgeon for pointing this article out.

Expelled: Intelligence, um, excluded?

2008-05-11T12:18:00.002-04:00

Q. Readers want to know if the Movie Answer Man is too PC to review "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"?

Ruddy Spencer, Tucson, Ariz.

A. The last I heard, it is not considered Politically Correct to agree with Darwin. I think it is more like, oh, intelligent.

From Roger Ebert's Answer Man column.

Journalistic standards

2008-05-10T16:53:00.002-04:00

Ms. Sheyla Hershey has breast implants. In an uncredited (?) story from Fox 29 in Philadelphia, the anonymous author writes, "Sheyla's implants are filled with a thousand CCs or two quarts of silicone."

I'm pretty sure my readership is literate. So you know that 1000 cc = 1 liter = 1.06 quarts. In fact, the abbreviation "cc" has been obsolete for decades in science and engineering (though I have no idea if that's equally true in medicine).

There was a day when people in journalism had at least the minimal education needed to recognize common units used in supermarkets. Has the unnamed reporter never bought a 2 liter bottle of soda? Compared it to a quart bottle of, say, ketchup?

Mary needs to schedule appearances in better venues

2008-05-10T16:36:00.003-04:00

Mr. Marc Lipton of Monterey, CA, has found another image of the Virgin Mary. You've all heard about her and her son appearing on potatoes, grilled cheese sandwiches, and tree trunks. Now she has manifested herself in road rash.

To those less insistent about supernatural intrusions into the physical world, this is a classic example of pareidolia. In a rational culture this example would be used in psychology classes.

Also making appearances in weird places: Homer Simpson.

Your tax dollars spent on voodoo

2008-04-27T21:56:00.002-04:00

Not literally, but: the US Army is distributing handheld polygraphs to our soldiers in Afghanistan. Polygraphs simply do not work.

I'm totally in favor of doing this, if the soldiers are properly briefed.

The thing is, the Talibani and their supporters will believe the polygraphs work, and they'll be an effective bluff, like the famous cop-and-colander story.

Speaking of how Creationists are wrong

2008-04-26T17:45:00.002-04:00

You know how evolution deniers always claim that we never see evolution happening, so it's just imaginary, made up to deny the non-materialistic answer? It's a stupid argument ("We can't see gravity, so it's just something antireligious people made up to deny that angels move the planets around") but not only is it illogical, it's contrafactual.

As reported in the National Geographic online, scientists transplanted some Italian lizards to an island off the coast of Croatia in 1971. Now, in 2008, their descendants have radically evolved, from insectivores to herbivores, developing "cecal valves" that let them digest cellulose, along with changes in head anatomy that let them consume tough plant matter.

Major anatomical changes in about 30 generations. Ben? Ben Stein? Do you want to do a crockumentary about that, or will you ignore it to make irrelevant Holocaust accusations?

Of course, to actual biologists this is a very interesting experiment in terms of MacArthur's and Wilson's work in island biogeography. I look forward to future reports.

Boomers can recite this whole scene

2008-04-24T11:11:00.004-04:00

I don't know if it's true, but it seems to me that everyone (male) I went to school with can recite great chunks of Monty Python dialogue, decades later.

Here's a sketch that's still vivid in our memories even now.

I hates them

2008-04-23T22:03:00.004-04:00

I hate Creationists. Not because they're wrong. Everyone is wrong about stuff at some time, I've been wrong that I know of plenty of times.

I hate them because they're either lying or crazy. Every one of them.

For an example of the lying kind, see Expelled. This Ben Stein-hosted documentary purports to show that "intelligent design" (Creationism pretending to be science) is excluded from the halls of academe because Big Science doesn't want to hear any dissent. Oh, and Darwin caused the Holocaust.

It's just plain lies. What isn't outright lying is mere distortion. They lied to their interview subjects, repeatedly. The movie itself is a string of lies. It's the antithesis of science, which depends on honesty. (I'm not claiming that all scientists are totally honest, but nothing angers a real scientist more than dishonest reporting of results.)

And when you think about it, lying to make a point sure sounds like false witness.

Putting a bad face on your business

2008-04-13T22:06:00.008-04:00

Advertisements are your attempt to show new customers who you are and why they should buy from you. Therefore, you should probably proofread them.

For instance, while literacy is not necessarily the skill I mostly look for in a manicurist or hairstylist, frankly I don't want them too stupid. If their boss can't tell "formally" from "formerly" or "has" from "have", I don't want them working on me. Of course, only a true nitpicker would bother to point out the incorrect ellipses (always three full stops) used incorrectly.

Also, I don't want anyone who claims to have a doctorate but who can't spell "digital" working on my hearing aid. (Ironically, he spells it right one line later.)

The first seen on Motor Parkway in Hauppauge, the second on a shopping cart in Glen Cove, NY.

Aaah ... I haven't actually lived up to my domain name for months.

When Design Fails: United Flunks The Test

2008-04-08T23:14:00.004-04:00

I'm going to Worldcon this year. Their official airline is United, so I tried to book at their site.

It's clear that nobody actually designed their reservation system. I would bet that they copied bits of it from other people's systems without ever having someone sit down and test it or even think it through.

Let me show you one reason I think so:

I live in the New York area. I can conveniently fly from any of four airports: Islip, LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark. Naturally I would like to check all those airports for the best price. For no good reason, United decided to force me to pick only one airport at a time to check rates. (Note the round "radio buttons" for each airport, which limit you to a single choice.)

A well-thought-out system would let me pick any number of airports and check them all in a single operation. That's what computers are good at, right? Doing repetitive work so us humans don't have to?

I tried to suggest this to United directly, but their web site has no way to send feedback.

After I gave up and tried to check one airport at a time, I discovered that the Select button didn't actually work (on Mozilla Firefox). Another stupid interface problem: to select cities whose names start with "I" one must click on a one pixel wide sans-serif letter. One pixel.

Thanks, United, for making me resent the very idea of buying tickets from you.

If any United employee reads this, I'd be grateful if you'd report this problem to your management, since they seemingly have a corporate policy of ignoring their customers.

I'm a media star, again!

2008-04-01T08:40:00.003-04:00

I'll be appearing on The Computer Mechanics (Rogers television, Canada) Wednesday 9 April, and again 16 April.

Not treating sick babies: your tax dollars at work

2008-04-01T08:37:00.002-04:00

Dr. David Gorski points out today that (US) federal money is being spent to test homeopathic (that is, useless) remedies on poor sick children.

Yes, my bucks are taken out of my wallet and sent to practitioners of nonsense to refuse to actually help dying babies.

Expelled from Expelled

2008-03-21T08:33:00.001-04:00

PZ Meyers of Pharyngula is really, really dangerous.

Read this post all the way to the end.

Laughing at the angel of death

2008-03-09T00:33:00.003-05:00

I'm very lazy. Not pathologically so, but enough that I don't accomplish nearly as much as I probably (okay, definitely) should. I mean, I can't even manage to post a blog entry once a week.

One thing I do instead of post is read Cold Fusion Video, Nathan Shumate's movie and book review site. Aside from my ergophobia, I read it because it's great. Nathan's one of two or three writers I actually laugh aloud at, and the other writers at his site are also really good.

Last week (as I write this) there was no update. Nathan never has unannounced absences. I was curious.

This week, I find out that he had a stroke.

This is a guy who works a day job, and maintains one of the best entertainment sites on the 'net in his spare time, while raising two children. And the net effect of a brain stem stroke on his productivity: he missed one week's updates and suspended his second movie-review column.

And he literally mocked the angel of death in another blog he posts to. It isn't as if it was me doing it, since Nathan is actually religious and presumably believes in a literal angel of death.

So thanks, Nathan: your cerebrovascular accident has served to make one guy feel guilty. Maybe I'll even blog twice a month now.

Owning the printing press

2008-02-26T08:44:00.002-05:00

ISP Netcetera has closed down Quackometer, on the basis of a frivolous lawsuit threat.

I call upon anyone who cares about free speech to boycott Netcetera, and move any sites they may host for you to another service.

I'm not the only blogger to think this way.

The blind leading ...

2008-02-04T21:47:00.000-05:00

A Texas woman is asking for state accreditation as an acupuncturist, despite her blindness. During her training she has already treated over 500 patients. She argues that she can place needles just as effectively as a sighted person.

It's a horrible article. First of all, how can Mary Ann Roser not even mention that medical doctors are often licensed despite blindness? Does the Texas State Board of Acupuncture Examiners think being an acupuncturist is more demanding?

Of course, the real scandal is that such a Board exists. Because acupuncture doesn't work. Yeah, yeah, millions of people believe in it. When it's studied carefully there's nothing there. There's some good evidence that sticking people with needles and calling it "therapy" makes them feel better--even when the needles are fake and don't penetrate the skin. There's zero evidence for "chi" or "meridians" or the rest of acupuncture's ancient, basis-free foundation.

The equally bad scandal is that Ms. Roser never even thought to question the idea of licensing professional acupuncturists, so they can then fail to help anyone.

Feh.

Astrology demonstrated

2008-02-01T21:00:00.000-05:00

A fine example of how astrologers make money

Snake Oil

2008-01-31T23:27:00.000-05:00

This is a speech I gave at Toastmasters a few years ago.

Come one! Come all! Step right up and see the miracle cure, the guaranteed, in-arguable, un-beatable medicament, and cure-all. It reduces swelling, soothes arth-ritis, and grows new hair on the bald. It relieves indigestion, cools fever, and smoothes out pimples. And this marvel, this balm and universal comforter, can be YOURS for the low price of one dollar -- that's only ONE dollar for this six-ounce bottle, good for a full YEAR of treatment.

Sounds silly, doesn't it? But if I used scientific-sounding words, instead of carnival-barker talk, there are millions -- billions -- of people who'd believe it.

We want to be healthy. Actually it's stronger than that: we're all afraid to be sick, and that fear can motivate people to do totally unreasonable things, things that make no sense, in order to at least have the HOPE of health.

What I'm going to do today is describe a couple of the enormous number of useless remedies that are being used right now, in this country, by perfectly intelligent people. For each, I'll describe what it is, then why it's silly, and why people continue to use it. Then it'll be time to discuss the important question: what can we do about it?

If anyone listening has used one of these treatments, I hope you won't be offended. As I said, millions of people have at least tried each of these.

I'll begin with something that even sounds silly. "Ear Candling". It's just what it sounds like, too. You put a candle in your ear and light it. Actually, an assistant does the work while you lie on your side.

What's the benefit of this? Well, it's a special cone-shaped hollow candle, and the idea is that the heat of the flame warms the ear, and the wicking effect of the candle draws excess ear wax out. A list of only some of the things it's supposed to cure include: TMJ (temporo-mandibular joint syndrome), tinnitus (ringing in the ears), relieving sinus pressure, earache, and much vaguer things like "relieve tension" and "purify the blood".

That's one characteristic of snake-oil medicine, by the way: making lots of claims, some of them very vague and hard to pin down.

Why is it snake oil? Because, for one thing, careful experiments have shown that the candles don't remove any wax from the ear. The idea that the candle somehow sucks anything out of the sinuses is naive. The ear drum blocks the ear canal off from all other structures inside the head. Bottom line: there is NO evidence that ear candles work.

So why believe it? Well, it's cheap to do -- the candles cost as little as two dollars. It has a nice "New Age" sound to it -- talk of things like "energy" and "stress reduction" on the package. And it doesn't seem very risky. Mostly, though, I think people just don't think about it. If you see the product in a health food store, it must be healthy.

Well, okay, you're thinking. Ear candling is OBVIOUSLY stupid. It doesn't even sound scientific! Well "Homeopathy" sure does. A very, very popular school of "alternative medicine" right now, homeopathy is based on two principles. One says that you cure a disease by giving the patient a substance that would, in larger quantities, CAUSE the same symptoms. The other says that the LESS of the medication you give, the GREATER the effect. Homeopathic remedies are almost all completely harmless, even if they give something toxic like mercury, because they're really, really diluted. Sometimes they're so diluted they're GONE. A common homeopathic remedy for the common cold, oscillococcinium (duck liver and heart) is diluted 100:1 200 times. Ask any chemist -- that dilution mean that NOT ONE MOLECULE of the duck remains in the actual product people are taking. It's chemically pure sugar, which has touched water that has touched water that once touched a molecule of the original duck liver.

Okay, it sounds silly, but experimental evidence is always the deciding factor. As you might expect when I'm discussing it here, many, many experiments over decades of research have found no evidence that a homeopathic remedy works better than plain water or sugar -- which is, after all, what it is. Oscillococcinium is literally a sugar pill.

Some people believe it on the evidence that it's old -- "If it were false, why would people still believe it?" Well, because people don't always decide based on the evidence. And it sounds scientific, if you don't know science -- it uses Latin words like "similas", practitioners write prescriptions.

Actually, that leads to my next point: people who think critically always saw the flaws in homeopathy. I have read a lecture by the famous judge Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1842, in which he points out the flaws.

So, my proposed solution to the problem of quack medical treatments is better thinking. That is, to use a relevant expression, easy to prescribe but hard to administer. How can we make people think?

We can't. But we can encourage them.

I used to be a schoolteacher. What with teaching to standardized tests, short class periods, short school years, and all the other problems you all know about, it's very hard to teach anything but memorization -- if the kid can't recite back the required standard answers on standard tests, your school loses funding. We can change that.

Another thing that can be done is fixing the FDA. Currently the FDA can't properly regulate in these matters. Their budget is too small, and Congress keeps restricting their powers. They HAVE made ear candles illegal, but they can't enforce that. Again, if people want this fixed, it's up to our representatives and eventually, it's up to us.

And in the end, that's my answer. It's up to us -- to think carefully, to educate OURSELVES before we believe the line about a "balm and universal comforter", and to spread the message to others.

As I hope I've done today. Thank you.

An Error Message Lives Up To Its Name

2008-01-28T22:22:00.000-05:00

I've written before about my love for the late, very much lamented Interface Hall of Shame.

Brian Hayes would have loved this one.

I got the above message by highlighting several files in the Windows Vista Explorer and right-clicking on them. That's right, this is a message that Windows displayed warning me about its own option menu! Note that the title is "Internet Explorer". The message was actually produced by Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer wasn't even running!

Leave aside that the message was produced in the wrong situation by the wrong program. What good is a message that talks about "unspecified potential security risk"? This message is for the end-user, who on average knows nothing about computer security. What good does this message do for him or her? Are we supposed to call Microsoft each time it appears? What sub-room-temperature IQ thought this would be helpful to anyone?

When Irony Attacks Astrologers

2008-01-25T20:56:00.000-05:00

The Astrological Magazine announces:

"We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of the Astrological Magazine will cease with the December 2007 issue."

Yet the subscribers will remain astrology believers.

I was NOT expecting that!

2008-01-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't about Johnny Carson.

Back in August I wrote a mini-tribute to Perry DeAngelis of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast. One of his colleagues on that show, Rebecca Watson, has created a pilot for a public radio show, Curiosity, Aroused. One segment of the show has Rebecca visiting a psychic fair, showing several mediums and psychics a picture of Perry, and asking what they can tell her about her friend.

They say things like "He will have a financial success in the first half of next year." They suggest general good fortune for Perry. Not one psychic said, "He's dead," or even "He's watching you from the other side."

It reminds me of a quote I saw in a signature: "I've gone to hundreds of fortune-tellers' parlors, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her."--a New York City police detective as quoted by Greg "Dr. Elmo" Morrow.

Rebecca's show is, in my opinion, wonderful. Several NPR stations have already signed up to play it on the air (including my local WNYC) but you can hear it right now. Give it a listen.