Maher…right on something

For those who don't know i have mixed feeling on Bill Maher. There are some things he stands for that i really support and like him for, and on others (mainly his stance on medicine) i want to say “How stupid can you be”.

In this instance though i have to say he gives a good supporting stance for climate change. My favorite bit is his quote

“It's scientist's vs. non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don't get to vote”

It is hard to listen to him say this and not want to use that very same argument against him on his stance against medication and medical science, but that is a rant for another post.

What do you think about his comment and the current state of climate change in general?

A Kick-Ass Review

What is the recipe for a kick ass movie: a good amount of BGG (Blood, Guns, and Geeks). The latest in a trend of nerdy comic book related movies, Kick-Ass takes on a story line unique to anything seen recently. Imagine Iron Man’s Tony Stark without the good looks, money, and brains and you have Dave Lizewski. Dave sets out to become the super hero Kick-Ass. After some unfortunate situations of wrong place wrong time, he meets Hit Girl and Big Daddy to other super heroes running around the city attempting to carry out their own greater plan against the “evil villains” of this town.

Throughout this entire film you will be left saying two things 1) “Did they just do that O.o? and 2) “That kicked ass”. Kick-Ass was an interesting mix of crazy, fun, and impossibility. If you are looking for a fun movie filled with violence, teenage angst, super heroes, and comedy then this is defiantly one to check out. It has been a long time since I have walked out of a movie with my blood pumping and this has brought me back to that point.

iPad Hands On

*Update* 4/28/10

Some of you may have seen this post and though O.o must be a glitch. I want to assure all of you there was no glitch this was my hands on post. And now for the explanation, i was at the apple store viewing the blog to see how it looked on the new iPad screen when the idea hit me to try doing a hands on review on the iPad. While this may seem like a great idea it turned in to the failure you have all seen for the past month. For some reason I was able to type in a title, but the iPad would not recognize the “Body” section on blogger to be a text field so I was not able to actually post a hand on review. For those of you who were hoping for an actually hands on review then look below.

iPad Hands On (much much later)

The iPad is a very sleek smooth device; I don’t think it would be going too far to say that it is a beautiful piece of technology. The device is very responsive just as one would expect from the makers of the iPhone and iPod Touch. That being said it does feel like a very big iPod Touch, and in some ways that is a downfall. When I was attempting to type on it I found that the on screen keyboard was either to wide or too small for my hands to type normally like one would on a touch screen computer. The apple sales person at the store suggested that I use the “two finger method” which I like to refer to as hunting and pecking for keys and is a very tedious process. I am confident that this like with most new products just requires some new conditioning to become comfortable with and that if I owned one it would become easier to type on. That being said I am still not running out to get one for the reasons I mentioned earlier in a previous post iPad, rock or flop?.

Recommended Listening/Reading

I have recently realized that I never mentioned how I managed to get myself into the skeptical universe, and I feel it is time to pay tribute to some of my “influences”.

My biggest influence would be “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe” hosted by Dr. Steven Novella, “an academic neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine”, and his group of skeptical Rouges.

“The Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a weekly Science podcast produced by the New England Skeptical Society (NESS) in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) : discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view.”

The Skeptics Guide is about an hour long show filled that discuss the latest in skeptical news laced with amusing, snarky, and often geeky quips. On many occasions I have found myself bursting out laughing on my drive to school. Even though this is a primarily science based show, the topics are discussed on a level that even a non-science background person could understand.

It is this show that provided the inspiration for not only the creation of this blog, but also my own podcast Derationalize This! and its own blog (this sites sibling blog).

For those of you who don’t like to listen to other people talk (feels too much like talk radio) or are not interested in the world of podcasts. There are also a number of blogs that are worth taking a look at, and have provided ample amounts of information in what is going on in the world around us.

Blogs to read

• Pharyngula – A blog written Professor PZ Myers, biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He tends to put up multiple posts a day, and covers topics primarily relating to science and religion. He is one of the more radical fell known skeptics, but when you want to hear from someone who will show no mercy to lunacy PZ is the one you want to read.
• Bad Astronomy – Phil Plait, astronomer, lecturer, and author, publishes multiple posts a day focusing on mainly the space end of science but will cover any and all science related topics; he also has been known to geek out over sci-fi (Doctor Who etc.). He has published two amazing books “Bad Astronomy” and “Death from the Skies”. Phil is also the ex-President of the JREF and currently working on an undisclosed secret project.
• Richard Wiseman Blog – Prof. Richard Wiseman is a psychologist and the author of great books like Quirkology. His blog updates daily with interesting new experiments or online questions as well as every Friday posting a brain teaser question that he provides the answer to on Monday.
• The Rogues Gallery – a group blog featuring the hosts of the SGU – Steven Novella, Bob Novella, Rebecca Watson, Jay Novella, and Evan Bernstein

I hope many of you check out these other great sites which have given me so much guidance and resources as a skeptic.

Alice In Wonderland Review

Somehow i have managed to find a temporary social life within the pile of all my work and was able to escape for a weekend to go watch a movie. I recently watched the new Alice in Wonderland from Tim Burton and have decided to post a little review about it. This review does contain spoilers though so anyone does not want to read it should leave now, otherwise please check it out below the break.

*SPOILER WARNING*

 

 

Alice in Wonderland is a unique and brilliant tale of a girl in a strange place…again. In this story director Tim Burton is taking Alice, now 19 years old, back to Wonderland or as he calls it Underland (apparently Alice misheard the name the first time she was there). In this telling Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) had vague dreams of her last trip to Underland, but she does not think of it as something the really happened until she fall once again down the rabbit hole and into the wondrous land of impossible things. She encounters many old friends including The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) who help her of her true destiny, to sleigh the Jabberwocky and end the Red Queens reign.

This story is not a sequel to the Lewis Carroll novels, nor is it a retelling of the original stories. It is in fact an extension onto the Carroll stories. Burton creates a world where you can feel the emotions of the characters and adds a little more depth to the inhabitants of this world. This movie was an interesting experience of subtle undertones found in the original, and awe inspiring animations. The production quality is superb using a unique blend of colors and the computer animations of both the animals and the Red Queen adds to the wonder of Alice in Wonderland.

Caught in a lie… by your brain

Polygraphs move over, it’s been a good 100 years but its time for a new tool now. The future of lie detectors may very well be found in the brain, well the reading of the brain to be precise. Functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) is thought to be able to tell if a person is lying.

In short:

“fMRI scanners detect variations in the magnetic properties of blood as oxygen levels change in response to neural activity. The more a section of the brain works, the more oxygen it demands and the brighter it glows on the scan.” It is believed that when a person is lying certain parts of the brain are working (lighting up) in a particular pattern, termed as a “deceit pattern”.

Recently reported in Popular Science magazine, two companies are working on Lie Detecting MRIs. Thanks to the increasing admission of MRI evidence in court cases, there is now an opening for MRI lie detector evidence to be used in courts as well.

It should be noted that there is no such things as a true lie detector. The one that the majority of the public has come to know of is called a polygraph, which measures physical responses like blood pressure and pulse during questioning. There is much debate to this day about the credibility of the polygraph as a lie detector since the factors that cause it to produce results consistent to lying, can also be achieved from a person who is nervous or stressed during the interrogation.

I personally believe that fMRI lie detectors are no better or more accurate then the current 100-year-old polygraph. While fMRI machines are useful tools in the medical field, they are by no means perfect. In an article published by WIRED magazine. It was found that a dead salmon being used in testing an fMRI at Dartmouth apparently showed results of having brain activity.

Photo from WIRED magazine

This shows that MRI results used for the sake of mapping “deceit patterns” in a brain may not be as accurate as one would hope when possibly passing a life sentence or death penalty. Another problem found with using a fMRI result for lie detecting purposes is that no two brains are alike, and the variations in brains makes it difficult to establish a base line to compare the subjects brain scans too. While I am in no way saying that fMRI results are worthless and should not be used, I am just saying they are not fool proof enough to be used as lie detector evidence in a court of law.

iPad, rock or flop?

Well for everyone who may not know because you live under a rock or are a hard core (and likely depressed) windows fanboy who will not listen to anything by Apple, today was the big press event unveiling the long awaited Apple Tablet named iPad.

Having watched today's events and seeing some breakdowns on the device from a couple of very good sources (gizmodo, engadget, and more) i have come to an opinion on the device. I will reveal my feelings at the end but for now i will just bore you with the technical stuff so that you can form your own opinion before hearing mine. I will try to make this review as unbiased as possible.

Hardware:

• Height: 9.56 inches (242.8 mm)
• Width: 7.47 inches (189.7 mm)
• Depth:0.5 inch (13.4 mm)
• Weight: 1.5 pounds (.68 kg) Wi-Fi model;

   1.6 pounds (.73 kg) Wi-Fi + 3G model

Connection:

• Wi-Fi 802.11n
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Optional 3G with a plan

Price:

Size:

• 16GB
• 32GB
• 64GB

Features:

The iPad has a built in Accelerometer, 3.5-m stereo headphone jack, microphone, compass, and SIM card tray for microSIM on the WI-Fi + 3G model only.

Okay now for some things that you should know before going out to buy one when they an available.

The Good:

• 10 hours of battery and over a month of standby
• Huge Screen
• Blazing Fast
• Multi-touch display with very cool graphics
• eBooks, and the possibility of school text books being available in eBook form
• On Screen Keyboard
• Physical Volume and Mute Buttons on the side of the device

The Bad:

• No Flash, while this was manageable on the iPod Touch and iPhone, it is a major problem on the iPad since it limits watching videos online to YouTube, sorry Hulu :(
• No Multitasking, this means only one app at a time can be running which seems like a waste with all this power and speed to not be able to run things like Pandora in the background while working on something else.
• No Camera, i cannot get over this puzzling decision why would they not though in a front facing camera, but its missing which mean video conferencing will be too, this makes it more like a giant iPod Touch then a supercharged iPhone.

The Ugly:

• No ability to connect other devices to it without the use of extra adapters. There is only one port on this device and it is the proprietary 30-pin port used by Apple, meaning only Apple products would work with it.
• Only App Store apps will work on the iPad, meaning you will not be able to download programs from the internet like Google Chrome or other commonly used apps. Also anything not approved by the App Store cannot be used which includes the popular Google Voice App.
• Rigid Apple limitations on individuality and customization of the actual operating system, it appears to follow the strict rules of the iPhone using the 4 column snap to grid and non-movable dock.
• Naming the device iPad, thus beings the wave of Female Hygiene product jokes.

So here is my final opinion, i feel that while it is a very cool device and it is something that hardcore Apple fans will want, the iPad as it stands not may not do well. It is clear that they are trying to market this device towards business people and college students with the addition of the iBook Store and Brushes. The problem is that these are people who are going to want to be able to use their mobile devices for things other then what might be found in the app store. Also being unable to add a USB device to it, and lacking a camera, there is going to be some major drawbacks for people who use the internet to communicate with video. One of the most annoying things to plague the iPad though will be the large glossy blank boxes on web pages where a nice flash video would be, on a small screen it is easy to ignore, but if able want to make this device a standard in every house then they are going to need to add Flash.

I am not going to be getting one right now, but that is subject to change depending on later hardware upgrades.

For anyone interested in reading more about the iPad feel free to check out the hands on reviews and videos over at gizmodo, and engadget. Also the video of today’s conference is available online from Apple with Quicktime.