Posts by Andrew Hubbard
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I'm missing something around this Carnot thing..
Surely the working fluid contains a certain amount of (potential) energy at ambient temperature. Energy is added as the temperature of the fluid is raised, but extraction of 100% of the *added* energy occurs when the temperature of the fluid is reduced back to the original ambient temperature?
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Love the Rather clip.. remember when TV journalists made interesting and cohesive narratives as opposed to sensationalist backdrops to advertising?!
And interesting how Rovian voter rigistration has morphed over time from registering Repubs to mass deregistration of legitimate black voters ala Greg Palast's work. -
"I'm not a committed conspiracy theorist but....
I always feel the skeptic in me re-awakened at times like these. Whose interests are being served by the ongoing threat of "terrorTM"?"
Amen. Someone packs a car with petrol, throws nails on the floor, then drives it erratically and parks in front of a nightclub. That sure has all the hallmarks of Al Queda alright.. Personally, I'm with the guy who says those vehicles were designed as warnings, not bombs, and were addressed directly to the gay pride movement.
I still think it's appalling, but I wish the self-proclaimed rationalist community adopted more of a general attitude of critical skepticism about the origins of some of these scares. -
What I’d love to see is a lurch to the Greens from this whole fiasco:
- Labour and National have been playing a cynical game of race-to-the-bottom
- Winston’s losing his traditional Teflon
- United have conspicuously failed to transcend their leaderConversely environmental issues are suddenly mainstream, and the Greens who’ve been ridiculed and marginalised for years need to capitalise.
Whether they manage to or not, surely a good chunk of the electorate has to be giving up faith in red/blue and thinking about going wider. -
"And if you think Dawkins is bitter, I can only assume you haven't actually bothered reading most of his work"
that's a fair call.. all I've read has been snipperts and it's entirely possible (likely) that the axe being ground is the quoter's rather than his.
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“Dawkins too closely resembles Ann Coulter for mine - glib, bitter, divisive, and arrogant. This isn't to say Dawkins is wrong however, even if I personally consider his doubts to be more illuminating than his certainties”
That’s my problem with Dawkins also.. whilst I agree completely with skewering the irrationality of most conventional religion, Dawkins tries to present science and rationality as the ultimate solution to life, the universe and everything.
I’m very grateful to science and fond of rationality, but there are a number of areas where science has little of substance to contribute. Morality is one. One-off or non-repetitive events that are unsuitable for generalisation are another. Irrational processes including creativity are a third.
Most people I know like to opt out of living life according to strict rationality sometimes (maybe get good and pissed once in a while). Some of them prefer to navigate their lives as much by feeling as by strict rationality. My partner is a practicing Catholic and despite the fact I find most of the doctrine ridiculous, there’s no doubt in my mind it adds richness and value to her life.
So fine, when religious fundies tread on science’s home turf eg how/when was the planet created, see it off. But a bit of humility as to science’s limitations and outright fuck-ups would go a long way too. -
"Unsurprisingly some people get addicted to that high".
True, with caveat that adrenaline/endorphin junkies are a small percentage of total.. the majority are unaddicted people who simply enjoy and pursue the feeling/response.
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Fireworks are great, but not as immediate as filling a vacuum cleaner hose with gas from the school bunsen burner taps and blowing through it whilst holding a match to the other end.. mmm adult hindsight is a goose-bump inducing thing..
A number of problems with the �nanny-state� thing:
- the �creeping� part is not just rhetoric.. people do seem to develop a tolerance for having their lives increasing restricted �for their own good�. Similar to the way kids physically restrained at a young age learn a self-enforced passivity. Which is certainly going to be a damper on exploration/entrepeneurism.- my somewhat-anarchist (paranoid?) mind wonders how much revenue the advertising/PR industry receives from all the safety-related campaigns.. enough I imagine for it to be a worthwhile market for them to seek it's continuance/growth.
- this issue is big in outdoor recreation circles where some are rejecting increased safety measures on tracks on the basis kiwis have often turned to the outdoors to learn and test their limits and essentially to be exposed to danger. Seems to me there is a basic human attraction towards exposure to danger (for many) and attempts to legislate it away simply cause it to pop up in other ways. Therefore it becomes an increasingly costly exercise in futility to attempt to legislate away danger from our communal lives.