It would seem that my blog needs more sex and violence.

(via Sporadic Maunderings)

Later,

Best time travel quote ever.

I was going through my post archives, looking for something I thought I remembered saying, so that I could just link to that post, rather than say it again. I'm still looking, but I read a post I had made about the movie 'Primer.'

I mention my favorite line from the movie. It's still the best time travel one-liner I have ever heard.

"Man, are you hungry? I haven't eaten a thing since later this afternoon."

Later,

Sidebar additions

My cousin jackal recently started a couple of blogs. I have added links to them to my sidebar.

Later,

Rowan Atkinson

I was never a fan of "Mr. Bean," and "Johnny English" kind of sucked, but Rowan Atkinson's stand-up is pretty good. Here's an example:



Later,

Stub

This post is just a stub to let people know that I'm still alive. Things have been pretty hectic at work lately, and I'm too busy de-stressing whan I get home to make any meaningful post.

If I don't stop now, I'm going to start ranting and raving like the lunatic I pretend not to be.

Hopefully, I'll be able to say something coherent this weekend.

Later,

NOMA

Stephen Jay Gould (an evolutionary biologist), in a attempt to reconcile science and religion, introduced the concept of Non-Overlapping MAgisteria¹

The basic idea is that science says stuff about the physical world, religion says stuff about the spiritual world, and never the two shall meet.

Nice idea. Doesn't work.

Here's why:

Religion says some crap about God (gods? bipolar? MPD?)
Science: "Talk is cheap, show me the evidence."
Religion: "No way, NOMA says I don't need physical evidence."
Science: "Fine. Go away."
Religion: "I won't. You have to teach my stuff, too."
Science: "Teach your stuff in philosophy or art appreciation or something."
Religion: "My stuff is as real as yours. I can prove it."
Science: "Talk is cheap, show me the evidence."
Religion: "Well, you don't know everything."
Science: "True, but irrelevant."
Religion: "If you don't know, then it's God."
Science: "What?"
Religion: "God fills the gaps in your knowledge."
Science: "Those gaps are shrinking fast."
Religion: "You can't prove God didn't use science to do everything."
Science: "What happened to NOMA?"
Religion: "NOMA says that you have to respect my position."
Science: "No it doesn't. It says that we have to stay out of each other's business."
Religion: "Really? Well then it and you will both have to go."

If religion really stuck to spiritual things, it would never make any testable statements. As soon as it says something testable, it has violated NOMA. Religion (particularly Xianity) does this all the time, then cries "NOMA!" whenever science says that it's full of it.

Later,

¹Rock of Ages, 1999

Dark Angel

I just finished watching the series Dark Angel.

It was pretty awesome. Not because of Jessica Alba (although her presence didn't hurt), but because it fell into one of the (several) sub-genres of science fiction that I particularly like.

It went two whole seasons. Two. Longer than Firefly, sure. But Firefly didn't have James Cameron's name attached to it.

The series finale was great, but there is still a lot of story left to tell. A couple more seasons worth, at least. I don't know why the show was cancelled, but it was on FOX, so I have suspicions. (see my previous post about Firefly)

Like Firefly, I somehow missed this show while it was being aired.

I just did some looking on the internet. It seems that FOX nixed a third season of Dark Angel in order to air Firefly.

Heaven forbid a network have two science fiction shows at once (Why don't cop and lawyer shows have this rule?). Now I really hate Rupert Murdoch.

Later,