2017
February
24
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Turbulence in a distant galaxy
Now back to the sky — for the first time in more than 3 weeks I've taken
an astronomical photograph. This is the galaxy Messier 66 (M66) in Leo,
which is a spiral with obviously irregular structure thought to have resulted from an
encounter with another galaxy.
Celestron 8 EdgeHD, CGEM mount, Nikon D5300, stack of nine 3-minute exposures
at ISO 400, autoguided with a 60-mm f/4 guidescope, DMK camera, and PC with PHD2 software.
Stars are visible down to magnitude 18.0.
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Personal update
You may recall that, starting about a year ago, Melody gradually lost the ability to
walk without a walker. For a long time the cause was unclear. It turned out to be
an infection in her right hip, which had received an artificial hip joint in October 2014
and which had a problem with an infection that required it to be cleaned out surgically
in November 2014.
Just before Christmas, Melody had surgery again, to replace the infected implant with
an antibiotic spacer. She is wheelchair-bound and has been at a convalescent center
for physical therapy.
In a few days, if all goes well, she will come home, still wheelchair-bound, while awaiting
the next operation. Tomorrow (Feb. 25) she will come home for a couple of hours to assess
how well she can function and whether the house is sufficiently wheelchair-accessible,
then go back to the convalescent center for her last week of therapy.
Her wheelchair confinement is only for a few weeks, and then the regular hip implant goes in.
Of course, if she's in a wheelchair longer, we can modify the house further, but
for now, we're avoiding remodeling. I may, however, end up dissecting a door frame and casing
to make it into a portal wider than the original door, which is not actually needed.
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2017
February
19-23
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Why politics has become so painful
[Revised for conciseness.]
Today's XKCD puts its finger on one of the
biggest reasons politics has become so painful this year:
thanks to smartphones, we are immersed in low-quality "news" and discussion
all the time, everywhere, not just when we read the evening news.
I would add: because of social media, far too much of what we hear is non-expert,
amateurish, irresponsible, and ill-informed.
We aren't just hearing statements from organizations that have established
some reputation for knowledge. Everybody has something
to say, and lots of them think having strong feelings is enough, whether or not you
know anything. What's more, entirely too many are gullible, eagerly
spreading unconfirmed gossip and "memes."
Some of it even comes from people who are proud of their ignorance and actually think
that if they knew anything about the "other" side, it would contaminate them somehow.
Naturally, reading my balanced accounts of issues, they think I'm terribly contaminated.
All this creates a social dilemma: what do we do when we want to keep in touch with
someone but don't want to hear his or her political opinions constantly?
Social media have turned too many good people into blowhards.
I've enumerated many related follies in other entries, so I invite you to scroll down.
But in a nutshell, the problem is that new media have made it
easy to be loud and foolish, and a lot of people are doing it.
So what should people do? Do your own job, take care of your own family, do the good
you can where you can, and don't spend all your time on politics.
(Which can be difficult when people are bombarding you with challenges that demand answers!)
I won't say "never talk about religion or politics" because my Bible says to talk
about religion and our Constitution says to talk about politics. But I do think a lot of
people should stop trying so hard to save the world by fighting for their non-expert
personal opinions. Always remember you don't know it all.
In short, be humble.
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2017
February
16-18
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More about how to find our way home from "post-truth"
From David Mills I have five more pointers
on how to stay out of the "post-truth" mindset. A couple of them are specifically
aimed at Christians, but I think all five, with suitable adaptation, should make sense
to everyone. I've adapted them a little.
(1) Remember that you're accountable to God and to society; God and people remember what you say.
(2) Value your own credibility. You won't convince anyone if you talk like a fool.
That means not using "arguments" you don't understand.
In other controversies, especially young-earth creationism, we often hear people parroting
assertions or questions they haven't really thought through, some of which are very silly,
and expecting to knock down the opposition.
That is not how rational argument works. You win by understanding both sides and showing
which one is right, not by
using tricks that you yourself don't understand.
(3) Take care of your family, do your job, do good where you can and when you can;
don't spend your time in arguments that are beyond your qualifications.
(4) Educate yourself. Take courses or read
books
and learn about logic, logical fallacies,
and important philosophical issues.
(5) See opponents as human beings like yourself.
Imagine they will read, hear, and reply to your comment and that you will have dinner with them after your comment on their views.
By the way, if you followed the link in (4), don't laugh.
Despite its unpretentious title, Philosophy for Dummies is a good book,
written by a Christian philosopher who was a professor at Notre Dame.
I should add that it is a mainstream philosophy textbook, not a religious book.
Permanent link to this entry
Michael Novak, 1933-2017, on yet another problem with "post-truth"
I am sad to learn from a mutual friend that Catholic philosopher Michael Novak has died.
This is a good time to look back at
Novak's book
Business as a Calling,
which I
reviewed in 2005.
We didn't have the "post-truth" controversy then, but nonetheless, Novak hammered home a very
important point: to succeed in business, you have to believe in objective truth.
There are no postmodernists making fortunes. Success requires you to face the truth,
pleasant or unpleasant, about your work, your market, your sales. You cannot live in
a fantasy world or simply ignore unpleasant facts. Victory goes to the one who keeps up
with reality the best. That is why information is such a precious commodity in
business. (It's why people pay me to do big-data analytics now.)
Permanent link to this entry
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2017
February
12-15
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What comes after "post-truth"?
[Minor update.]
I am glad the terms "post-truth" and "fake news" and "alternative facts"
have entered popular parlance because it is much easier for people to beware of something
when they have a name for it. The latter two of these are, of course, variations on the
first one, so that's what I want to write about.
"Post-truth" is the attitude that something else matters more than factual accuracy.
Instead of believing and saying what is actually true, you believe and say something else,
just because you want to.
Described that way, "post-truth" sounds so foolish that nobody would touch it with a ten-foot
pole. But in fact it is common. Let me give you an example.
Suppose the issue is welfare reform. A wise person would gather information about how
the system works now, what happens to the people on it, what kinds of abuses are and are
not common, whether it's outgrowing its funding, and so forth, and then advocate something
with this information in mind.
But a post-truther skips the information-gathering step, and just says "I heard" the
housing projects are full of "welfare queens" and illegal immigrants, so we've got to
cut the programs. Or a more liberal kind of post-truther might say "I heard" there are
babies starving... Either way you get a recommendation not based on any knowledge of
reality.
Why "post-truth"?
So why would anybody want to be a post-truther? Several reasons.
- It's easier. No need to bother with facts. Just go with what you "heard"
or what you want to imagine. It's an epistemology for lazy people.
- Some people can't distinguish a vivid mental image from a fact.
An example is the "welfare queen" stereotype that I mentioned.
News media, especially slanted ones, exploit this.
They show you one (purported) example of something, and that's supposed
to be all you ever need.
- Many people have an ideology or a narrative — that is, a theory,
or a story they tell themselves — that explains everything and tells them what
to think. (For some people, "I'm conservative" or "I'm liberal" means "I want a simple
narrative uncluttered with facts.")
Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to have a broad perspective on the issues
and a clear value system,
but in real life, you have to check your judgments against reality.
- Some people just want emotional entertainment. Politics, for them, is about
feeling thrills of anger. They don't care whether facts are accurate as long as they
produce the feelings. This fact has been exploited by radio commentators for 30 years or more.
-
For many post-truthers, it's all about taking sides.
Everybody is either friend or foe.
If they're on "our side" you have to support them 100%, and if they're
on the other side, you have to oppose them 100%.
Such a person is afraid of facts that might interfere with his choice of sides
but thinks it's OK to distort facts to help "our side" win.
- Last, too many people just don't know how to think through a controversial
issue. They think that "consider both sides" means "never make a choice"
or even "compromise with evil."
To them I would say, remember what goes on in a courtroom.
The judge and jury want to hear the best that can be said for both sides of the dispute.
That doesn't mean both sides are going to win.
But they have to know the arguments on both sides before
they can decide.
Where did "post-truth" come from?
I think "post-truth" is a combination of several things.
As Internet social media have become our main form of political discussion, lots of
people haven't accepted the responsibilities that go with reaching a wide audience.
Taking wild guesses about facts might be OK if you're sitting on the porch
after dinner, speculating, and you don't have any information sources handy.
But when you post on Facebook, you are often reaching as many people as a
small-town newspaper (through "friends of friends")
and you're close to excellent information sources on the Web.
It is both easy and necessary to check your facts.
Web information sources aren't perfect, but at least they will keep you out
of abject ignorance.
Meanwhile, a lot of people today have swallowed postmodernism, a philosophy
(popular in literature departments, not philosophy departments)
that says everything depends on your point of view, there are no objective facts,
so we might as well believe anything we want.
(That may be a caricature of postmodernism, but it's what lots of people
have swallowed.)
I reply that although we all have our point of view,
objective facts can overcome our point of view, and that's why we call them
objective facts!
A popular postmodernist catch-phrase is, "You have no right to impose your beliefs
on me." It can easily degenerate into the notion that you have a right to make up
your own reality.
To which I would reply:
Are you giving up on science, mathematics, jurisprudence,
and even day-to-day survival on the ground that everyone is entitled to his own reality?
Can you drive on the wrong side of the road and just imagine the other cars aren't there?
If you do, they will immediately "impose" some beliefs on you.
Facts matter.
A weaker form of this is, "I have a right to my own opinion."
Well, you do, but opinions are
estimates of facts, which we use when completely confirmed facts are not available.
We care how accurate your estimates are.
You could have the "opinion" that 2 + 2 = 5 but
that wouldn't make it true.
Finally, of course, "post-truth" is a good cover for just plain dishonesty.
If you convince people truth does not matter, it's OK to lie.
How to find our way home
So how do we get out of "post-truth" and back to a healthy and logical
approach to knowledge and reality?
That almost calls for a complete course in logical thinking, but let me just hit a few
of the high points.
To stay in touch with reality, you have to cultivate factual accuracy as
a habit of mind. Honesty is more than just absence of bias.
Honesty is an active preference for accuracy even when accuracy costs something.
It means taking the extra minute to check facts and sources.
It means not passing off guesses as knowledge.
That means avoiding exaggeration and trash-talk.
Unfortunately, some people seem to think in exaggerations.
Instead of telling you what something is like, they will always tell you it extremely
big, or extremely small, or extremely bad, or extremely good.
And they think it is their duty to say the worst
things possible about things they oppose.
That is not the path to clear thinking. Exaggerations are not truth.
A habit of accuracy
implies knowing where facts come from. When you "hear" something, where
did you hear it from? Who is taking responsibility for it? Can you confirm it from
more than one source? If it were false, would you know?
The essence of the "fake news" problem is that people don't care about sources.
People who don't read very much will often swallow anything that looks well-written,
even if they don't know who wrote it. And anyone can set up a web site with a name
like "World News Today" and decorate it with "Breaking News" or with pictures stolen
from other news media, and then say anything they want.
Distrust those who say, "Only trust me, not anybody else."
They're trying to take you for a ride.
Would you put your money
in a bank that said, "All the other banks are corrupt and we're the only one you can
trust"? Or would you consider them a bit fishy? The same goes for information sources.
Professional news media don't report complete lies, but they do have a slant; they
emphasize some facts and events and downplay others. To get a balanced view, I often
look at Google News, which combines a large number
of other sources, and Reuters, which is relatively
unbiased and to-the-point. Of course, nobody gets to do all my thinking for me,
and I don't confine myself to media that support my opinions. I don't want
"conservative facts" or "liberal" facts — I want fact facts!
Second big point: Learn how to say "I don't know."
Much time and foolishness could be saved if people didn't try to have opinions when
they don't know enough facts. Ignorant opinions are worse than none at all.
So resist pressure to take sides on every issue that flits past you in the newsfeed.
It's perfectly reasonable to say, "I'll think about that and look for more facts."
That's how you keep from jumping on bad bandwagons.
Simply don't jump on bandwagons.
(That saves a lot of work, doesn't it?! Just when you thought I was going to burden
you with full-time study of current events — No! You don't have to have a position
on everything. You can simply keep quiet and keep your eyes open.)
In fact, even on issues you know a lot about,
don't take sides prematurely or too strongly.
Stand for what you stand for, but don't try to divide the whole world
sharply into friend or foe.
The real world is complicated and subtle,
and most things in it have mixtures of good and bad properties.
If all you want to do is cheer one side and boo the other, you're looking for a
football game, not a way of thinking.
And get out of the gossip business.
If you can't tell whether something is true, don't spread it.
Particularly on media such as Facebook,
a lot of people spend too much time spreading inaccurate information, just because it
came along and said "share this" or "copy and repost" or "97% of you won't have
the courage to share this."
Don't do that. Speak with your own voice and only tell us what you know.
Don't pass things along that you can't take responsibility for.
Now for something harder.
There is a joke about someone who got a headache trying to follow the directions on a can
of frozen orange juice because it said "concentrate." What I'm about to describe will give
some people headaches, too, but it's vitally important:
Do your best to understand the side that you disagree with.
Many people find this notion frightening for either of two reasons.
Some feel they'll be compromising with evil if they admit that the
"wrong" side makes any sense at all.
Others feel that they'll be misled if they start listening to enemy propaganda.
But that's not how it works.
Earlier I mentioned how, in a courtroom, the judge and jury have to hear the best that
can be said for both sides before they can make a decision. They don't just hear the
arguments, they test them against the evidence.
The same goes for any
thinking person. I can't choose between two sides unless I know what they both are!
And I have to test both of them against the facts.
And, second, even when something is clearly mistaken and wrong-headed, I can learn a lot
by analyzing the mistake.
Suppose you're teaching elementary school arithmetic and you have
a student who thinks 2 × 3 = 5.
To help this student, you need to know why he
thinks that. Did he just memorize the wrong number in the multiplication table?
(Did someone give out a printed table with a typo in it?) Or does this student think
multiplication is addition? You can't set the student straight until you find out how the
error arose.
And when you do, you haven't dirtied yourself with bad arithmetic — on
the contrary, you've helped someone else think more clearly.
The other good thing that happens is that you appreciate the student, even with his mistake,
as a rational human being; you don't look down on him as "dumb."
That is how thinking people deal with positions with which they
disagree.
A special warning to my fellow Christians
I have some additional cautions for my fellow Christians, especially
those who embrace the concept of "culture war."
There is, of course, an ongoing conflict between good and evil, godliness and
ungodliness, in our (or any nation's) culture. And some culture wars have been
fought and won in the past, such as the abolition of slavery.
But it is a terrible mistake to think of one side in an earthly political
conflict as "God's side." Normally, a Christian's (or any thinking person's)
attitude toward an earthly political conflict is, "Neither side is quite right,
but one of them is better than the other." (Sometimes better by a large enough
margin to warrant working in a campaign; sometimes not.)
When Christians identify godliness with a secular party or candidate, bad things
happen:
- Christians demonize the "wrong" side.
They start feeling contempt and even hate for fellow human beings,
even fellow Christians. This is soul-destroying.
- Christians call each other bad Christians for disagreeing about politics.
- Christians lower their moral standards regarding the "right" side,
ignore its faults, and
may even cheat to help it win. (Spreading unconfirmed facts is cheating.)
- Christianity starts being presented to the outside world as mere partisan
politics, with all its faults, and often with quite visible hateful attitudes.
- Organized Christendom starts following non-Christian leadership.
- Nationalism gets put higher than God. That is idolatry.
- Worst of all, people start thinking they're Christians when they are merely
patriots or political activists.
To much of this, Matthew
7:21-23 applies.
Permanent link to this entry
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2017
February
10-11
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Gadget of the day: USB data blocker
Sometimes you want to plug something into a USB socket just for
electric power, without any data communication.
In my case, I wanted to power my GPS from the car's USB socket, so
it would be on when the car is on, but if I used a regular USB cable,
the two devices would get into a quarrel. The GPS wanted to be updated
and the car's audio system wanted music. Each waited for the other.
The same need arises if you want to plug your smartphone into a
stranger's computer to charge it, without any risk of transferring
a virus or any data in either direction.
The solution is a USB charging-only cable or data blocker.
One way to make one is to cut into a USB cable and cut the green and white
wires, leaving red and black unaltered. Then I'm told it is a good idea to tie
green and white together on the device (smartphone) end, not on the host (computer)
end, to keep any stray signals from being mistaken for data.
If you're doing it that way, the host won't know what device you're using or
how much charging current it wants. A smarter solution contains a chip that
communicates with the host and requests maximum power.
Amazon sells one
that I have had good results with.
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2017
February
5
|
A plea for political sanity
I posted this on Facebook, and it got "likes" from all over the political spectrum
(from strong liberals, anti- and pro-Trump conservatives, and even
someone who knows Mr. Trump and was active in the
campaign). But it also elicited a few examples of the kind of narrow thinking that it
refers to. Read on...
There are people to whom if I said 2+2=4, they would ask me if that was the pro-Trump or anti-Trump position.
What's getting tiresome is the number of people for whom everything is either pro-Trump or anti-Trump, and nothing can be discussed from any other perspective.
And I think that's what a lot of us mean when we say we're tired of politics. We will be glad to talk politics, if you mean discuss facts about current events. We aren't into re-fighting the election or forbidding people to criticize one side or the other. If you just want to root for one side and boo the other, you're looking for the Super Bowl, not statesmanship.
In the comments I threw a harder punch:
Here is something else that troubles me. Before the election, lots of people were telling me to vote for Trump as a last resort — although not very good, he would implement some important conservative policies. Well, many of those people are now acting as if Trump is their object of worship! We're not to criticize him or his staff at all! If they really voted for him as a last resort, they should be among his harshest critics, trying hard to make him a better president than he would be without being prodded. What happened?
That continues to bother me. Why is no one saying, "Mr. Trump, we supported you, and we expect the best
that you can give us.
You should stop posting inflammatory remarks on
Twitter and get a better spokesperson than Kellyanne 'Bowling Green' Conway"?
Permanent link to this entry
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2017
February
3
(Extra)
|
Software patents
[Updated.]
I am happy to report that the case law of software patents has continued
to develop more or less the way I said it ought to.
Software ought to be patentable because software is more than just mathematics.
Indeed, software is an essential component of most complex machines today.
Your thermostat has software in it. So does your washing machine.
Software is a way of configuring and using a machine, even if the
machine is just an ordinary desktop computer.
It makes just as much sense to patent software as to patent a specially shaped cam that
makes a machine go through a special kind of motion. They are the same thing —
encoded control sequences — except that one is written in binary code and the other
is carved in metal.
At the same time, merely computerizing an existing process should not be patentable.
Patents are supposed to be distinctively new inventions, such that an ordinary
craftsman or technician, using his normal tools, does not risk accidentally infringing them.
Taking an existing business process and computerizing it is not inventing.
It is just building. It's what computer programmers do.
My objection to many software patents is that they weren't inventions;
they weren't creative new ideas.
And indeed they have died off like flies, overruled one by one —
not because software can't be patented, but because patents have to
be original ideas, not routine work that could be assigned to any programmer.
That is indeed the way things have played out, after the Bilski case,
the Alice case,
and subsequent developments related to Alice.
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2017
February
3
|
Hey Cortana! Go away!
Windows 10 Anniversary Update turned on Cortana for all of us,
even those of us who had had it turned off. Now we can't turn it off.
Or can we?
For privacy and safety, I turned off Cortana's access to the microphone
long ago. I don't want a piece of software — which isn't mine and
which changes frequently — to be listening to all my speech and responding
to some of it.
I've
written already about why I don't use speech-enabled apps
or devices, or at least don't leave them on all the time.
I think the industry has been incredibly naive about the privacy risks.
(By the way, if you think Cortana only listens when you say "Hey, Cortana,"
you're not thinking. How can it know you said "Hey, Cortana" unless it was
already listening?)
Today, though, on four different computers, Cortana popped up a Windows notification
offering to help me buy snacks for the Super Bowl.
No thanks, Cortana. You're a computer, and I'm at work. Be professional, please.
Anyhow, I have found out how to disable Cortana and have done it on
four computers. Click
here for instructions.
If the instructions are too technical, take them to any computer service shop along
with your computer. And use the gpedit.msc method if your computer
supports it; only use the registry method in Windows 10 Home. The reason is
that gpedit (or rather Group Policy) might override the registry if it's present.
If the search box at the bottom of your screen says "Search Windows," Cortana is gone.
If it says anything else — such as "Talk to me here" or "Search all the things" —
Cortana is still running the show.
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