All in all the entry isn’t very interesting to me – the way however in which he explains how reporting apparently works today is a gem of a quality you hardly find on the net. I have to add that personally I feel this is definitely not only true for political reporters. The long term repercussions of bad reporting is an uninformed society. Not being informed is the last thing the society will notice before it’ll fall into (probably unnoticed) totalitarianism.

[...]One of the principal functions of political reporters ought to be to dissect and dispense with misleading political sloganeering, but instead, they fulfill the opposite function: they are the most enthusiastic and effective disseminators of these cliches.

Some of them do it consciously and knowingly, for ideological reasons, to curry favor with sources. But many of them are driven by a far more banal dynamic. They “analyze” political disputes this way because most of their impressions are shaped by Beltway political operatives whom they respect and admire, on whom they depend, and this is how they have things explained to them. [...]

[...] What bothers me is the implication that the bare minimum is good enough, that as long as the other half of the conversation can work out the intended message, we’re golden. This disturbs me greatly; when did we stop striving towards excellence in our daily lives? When did we decide that the most minimal of efforts should be good enough? When did we become this lazy? [...]

The entry is basically about the fact that it seems to be socially acceptable to write and publish material online without caring in the least about how things are written or how to formulate sentences. I am by no means implying that I am writing correct English but that I am trying to – which is worth a lot already.

[...] Anyway, the bottom line is that it dismays me that people seem to be content with putting in the least effort possible, and acting as if that’s as far as we ever should go. It dismays me because it indicates a lack of desire to ever excel at anything, to push boundaries and try to better oneself and the world. [...]

“Während sich die Experten des Weltklimarates den Kopf über Maßnahmen gegen den Klimawandel zerbrechen, leistet sich Deutschland als einziges Industrieland der Welt weiterhin unbeschränkte und CO2-treibende Raserei”, sagte Wolfgang Lohbeck, Verkehrsexperte von Greenpeace. Es sei ein ungeheurer Zynismus, dass Minister Tiefensee ein Tempolimit blockiere. “Er verantwortet damit Jahr für Jahr Hunderte von zusätzlichen Verkehrstoten, Tausende von Verletzten und mehrere Millionen Tonnen Treibhausgase. Da die zuständigen Politiker bisher immer nur reden, wird Greenpeace jetzt handeln!”

and

Laut Greenpeace würde ein Tempolimit eine unmittelbare Verringerung des CO2-Ausstoßes um etwa neun Prozent auf deutschen Straßen mit sich bringen. Greenpeace setzt sich dafür ein, dass Hersteller Autos auf den Markt bringen, die weniger Sprit verbrauchen – wenn keine hohen Geschwindigkeiten mehr erlaubt seien, steige auch der Anreiz bei den Herstellern, weniger auf umweltschädigende Autos zu setzen, hieß es bei der Umweltorganisation.

In essence, Greenpeace doesn’t like politicians discussing matters to long – in this instance – speed limitations and has decided to put up their own road signs limiting the maximum speed on the famous German Autobahns to 120km/h. Now, am I missing something or, are they trying to abolish democracy (and freedom while we are at it?).

Reason, CO2 emissions could be reduced by a whopping 9% on the road (note: in my opinion that’s far, far less then a 1% overall reduction) and if there are low speed limits car manufacturers can concentrate on low emissions and low fuel consumption rather then speed. Nice thinking overall, I’ve got to admit. Oh wait, it might not be that good after all. What about American Cars? In the US the speed limits are quite low, actually a good deal lower then in good old Europe and yet they are fuel guzzling monsters.

So here are some quotes from the article.

The theory of nullity is set to make all kinds of sums possible that, previously, scientists and computers couldn’t work around.

“We’ve just solved a problem that hasn’t been solved for twelve hundred years – and it’s that easy,” proclaims Dr Anderson having demonstrated his solution on a whiteboard at Highdown School, in Emmer Green.
– Quote 1 from the article

Computers simply cannot divide by zero. Try it on your calculator and you’ll get an error message.

But Dr Anderson has come up with a theory that proposes a new number – ‘nullity’ – which sits outside the conventional number line (stretching from negative infinity, through zero, to positive infinity).
– Quote 2 from the article

The only valuable thing about all this is one comment, although poorly formatted, by Kurt Fitzner – in my opinion at least.

The “problem” of a computer with divide-by-zero errors is not a problem, it’s a feature. It’s not something you need to or even want to fix. You could easily design a computer that doesn’t have an error in that situation if that’s what you want. Replacing the error condition with a new symbol accomplishes nothing. The program still has to deal with the issue in order to present a real-world result to the user. A divide-by-zero error is the way programs do that. It’s easy to solve a “problem” when you’re the architect of the definition of the problem in the first case. Dr. Anderson first defines a problem: calculators and computers throw an error when you try to divice by zero, and then defines an artificial solution – but the problem was artificial in the first place. We’ve all run into poorly designed programs that don’t handle divide-by-zero errors properly and crash. This isn’t a problem of dividing by zero, this is a problem of a computer program not handling its data properly. We’ve also all run into programs that attempt to reference a null pointer. By the same reasoning, we could define the memory that a “null pointer” points to as some new type of virtual space called “nullspace” (trekies should appreciate my resistance to the temptation to call it “subspace”), and call it valid. Make the computer such that reading from “nullspace” always returns a null. Suddenly no programs crash from dereferencing a null pointer any more. It doesn’t mean that the program is going to now do something useful. It probably means it will end up displaying garbage to the user, hanging in an infinite loop, or branching off to never never land. As far as it goes mathematically, there’s nothing you can do with nullity on paper that you can’t do by simply leaving it as (0/0) in the equation. So from either approach (mathematically or from a computer science perspective), it’s nonsense. The author’s own response to some of the critics (or, I should say, alleged response) doesn’t help my opinion. Tossing out the names of two other Ph.Ds and offering vague references to undescribed “axioms” built around this new symbol all reinforce my opinion that Doctor Anderson sounds precisely like the character Robert from the movie “Proof”.
– Kurt Fitzner

N.B. I noticed to late that you can do whatever you want to the formatting of the comments on BBC, the cut the newlines out of it. In that regard – sorry Kurt.

I would like to know a specific reason why you do not believe in God or any other higher power.

Please actually explain yourself, and please don’t flame. I’m really interested in knowing what you all think.

I am an agnostic and I believe that the question is quite easy to answer.

Now, why would I choose to be an agnostic? What I am searching for a proves. You need proves in almost all the areas and parts of your daily life.

You do need to have a driving license when operating a car, so that you can prove that you are able to. You have to prove to your bank that you earn money in order to get a credit card. In court you have to be proven guilty before you can be sent to prison. Now, this last example is actually the most important one. Perhaps because it is the most obvious one to everybody, but perhaps because we just need – as human beings who like to question and analyse things – that something has taken place (a crime for instance) otherwise there is no need to believe that said convicted is a bad person and whatnot.

Interestingly, religion is the only place (hence the almost in my third sentence) I know of – or that I can come up with in a fraction of a second – where this seems not to apply. Why is that? I do not know. Prove me that that there is a god, and I will accept and formally acknowledge that I have been wrong. So far though, nobody has been able to do that.

You might argue that I could just as well prove that there is no god. Fair enough. But I believe I can counter that. To do so, we’ll have to get back to the court example I gave earlier on. People don’t go to a judge and say: “Look I haven’t done anything wrong.” without having been accused. There just is no need to prove that you haven’t done something, if there is nobody able to show that there has been an illegal act of your part. I reckon that most people do share my opinion on these court “rules”.

Now, I ask you. Where is the proof that there has been something – or that there is something – like a god? Asking me to prove that there is none seems just to be asking the question the wrong way around, as I tried to show with the court analogy.

As always, no offense meant to anybody whoever worships a god. I hope though that you will be able to understand why I am not.

A blog entry by Erik on the Xfce Blog got me motivated to take this one (What is your Perfect Major?).

You scored as Philosophy. You should be a Philosophy major! Like the Philosopher, you are contemplative and you enjoy thinking about the purpose for humanity’s existence.

• Philosophy – 100%
• Linguistics – 92%
• Theater – 92%
• Chemistry – 92%
• Engineering – 92%
• Mathematics – 92%
• English – 92%
• Psychology – 75%
• Sociology – 75%
• Journalism – 67%
• Anthropology – 58%
• Dance – 58%
• Biology – 58%
• Art – 50%

Anyhow – you may move along now.

The one piece of software I ran across today, which was using that outdated system was Open Office. Now, I can not claim that it was indeed Open Office, because it might just as well be that the Ubuntu Crew changed some settings when packaging OpenOffice.org2 – than again it isn’t important who did this.

What I mean is, how can one advocate open source software, yet rely on a non universal standard for units of measurement. How bluntly irrational is it to criticize Microsoft for not conforming to a certain standard yet not doing so oneself? While nobody awaits from Microsoft to suddenly step forward and do something right, you could await such a thing from people who propagate the use and the right to use free and useful software.

I fear that not many people see this matter as I see it though. And crap; I am not in favor of dropping the support of the “imperial” system right away, or at all for that matter. I am just bored to see that the default setting keeps on being non-SI.

Now frankly I do not think that many people care. But some might… So here we go:

The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Ralegh

If all the world and love were young,
and truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
these pretty pleasures might me move,
to live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
when rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
and Philomel becometh dumb;
the rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
to wayward winter reckoning yields;
a honey tongue, a heart of gall,
is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, they shoes, thy beds of roses,
thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten -
in folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
thy coral clasps and amber studs,
all these in me no means can move,
to come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
had joys no date nor age no need,
then these delights my mind might move,
to live with thee and be thy love.

Anyhow. My question is as follows. Is it a good thing to promote Google Talk or is it not? I mean, even though Google is definitely on the way to gain a huge amount of power – they are relying on an open standard, even if at the moment it still isn’t possible to sent a message from the “normal” Jabber network to Google Talk – isn’t is better to promote a “by standard” open network as Google Talk over the closed ones like for instance OSCAR2 (AOL and ICQ) or MSN?

Do you think that using Google Talk is any better than ICQ, AIM or MSN?

At the moment I still do not know. I think however that I tend towards the alternative of recommending Google Talk. We’ll see…