Monthly Archive: September 2008

NANOWRIMO 2008

Yep, it's back nanowrimo has returned in its 10th Anniversary year and I am sure it will be bigger and better than usual. Also, as usual i will be silly busy that month with parties to attend, write-ins, the usual ammount of $work and the fact that I am the organiser of the London Perl Workshop 2008 which is at the end of November.

-sigh-

Anyway Nan Knows Rhino, w00t….

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ooks June-August

So the book list for June and August started with a mini-series and their inspiration. I read Wicked, Son of a Witch and the Wizard of OZ…

Son of a Witch (Wicked Years 2) The Wizard of Oz Wicked (Wicked Years 1)

I enjoyed all three of these books, it was a bit strange reading the Wizard of OZ after being immersed in a modern re-imaging (crappy term I know but there you go) of the story, but  could see where he took his inspiration and how he twisted the tale he told from that book and using the imagery presented in the very popular film. i highly recommend all of these books and it makes a good preview to the fact that I intend to see Wicked the musical when i am in London in November.

After fantasy worlds I returned to the worlds of Sci fi and finished The Prefect and Pushing Ice by Alistair Reynolds. I have a big fondness for Reynolds writing now, I am particularly fond of big ideas and wide scope sci-fi (space operatics in fact) and he manages to write in this area with style and gusto.

The Prefect (Gollancz S.F.)
Alastair Reynolds

Pushing Ice (Gollancz S.F.)
Alastair Reynolds

I also finished the Graphic Novel sequence Y:The Last Man. This series pretty much came to a near end in Vol. 9 and 10 held few surprises for me, the writers still managed to twist what you expected to happen and delivered a very satisfactory epilogue that neatly rounded off the story.

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Creationism in Science 2 (how could there be only one)

So Auntie Beeb now has an updated article clarifying the dear professor's comments:

"He also added a clarification on his position regarding creationism in schools.

"Some of my comments about the teaching of creationism have been misinterpreted as suggesting that creationism should be taught in science classes. Creationism has no scientific basis.

"However, when young people ask questions about creationism in science classes, teachers need to be able to explain to them why evolution and the Big Bang are scientific theories but they should also take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis.

"I have referred to science teachers discussing creationism as a worldview'; this is not the same as lending it any scientific credibility.""

Well that's alright then isn't it? Not (sad but I used it).

I want to update my article, when I said that the number three was a type of tomato and should be taught in Biology I was misunderstood, what I meant was that the number three is not a tomato in a biological sense but if asked why random integers are not covered we should teach in biology the principle of number-fruits, how this differs and why numbers are not biologically fruits.

Sorry, but you are sir, still an idiot. But I like the way you moved out of that argument, were you misquoted or misinterpreted? The jury remains out until the Beeb updates the article with further revision.

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Creationism in Science

So Professor Michael Reiss wants Creationism to be taught in Science lessons in the UK (BBC article), and he uses the rather abstract reasoning that, "should be seen as a cultural "world view". Well I have another cultural view for him. Mine: he is a plonker, a doik, a moron, an idiot, a stupid arsehole, a git, a goit, a twonk and an unsufferable ass.

Science is not the place for religion and rather than allowing people to explore beliefs it will in fact just muddy what a science lesson is about.

How about this Professor bollock-brain: I think the number three is irrelevant to Maths and in fact is a type of tomato, so biology should now discuss why 3s grow on trees resemble a vegetable but are in fact a fruit, and the sequence of integers is 1 2 4 5… No, clearly not, and this is preposterous, like your argument.

Why do people keep confusing evolution, a natural process that we can OBSERVE in action with the various beliefs for the Creation of mankind? Whether or not man was created by God or the FSM, whether or not God exists is f*cking irrelevant in terms of Science. We can observe evolution in process, we can see the changes and record them. There is no doubt about it.

(This allagory is stolen from my wife)

It is like the apple under the tree. If I see an apple under a tree I might presume that gravity made it fall from the tree, whereas you may presume that somebody put it there, neither of us can be absolutely sure who is correct as neither of us directly observed what happened, but we can both still agree that gravity exists, just because the apple was placed doesn't mean that gravity ceases to exist (for soft twonks like Professor Reiss man is the apple btw).

Now I have no idea whether Professor Plonker (a biologist) believes in mans' evolution or creation (I guess the latter by the fact that he is a CofE Minister), but he must know that evolution is observable, therefore taught as a science, I don't give a flying f*ck whether man evolved by this process or not, and I don't think we need to teach evolution in context to man as there are far easier examples of evolution to use, but I do expect science to be taught in a science class, not belief.

Otherwise at the same time can we also teach about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

(Apologies for the harsh rhetoric, but arguments like this serve no purpose at all and in fact cause more harm by muddying the waters and confusing a process with a belief.)

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