Woodpress

This evening my son grabbed one of our digital cameras, went outside, and made a quick nature documentary. How cool!

So, here it is… his first nature documentary. Hopefully there will be more in the future.

How many words is a picture of words worth?

I got a new scanner. Consumer scanners have come a long way since I bought my last one. This scanner is amazingly quiet and fast, and the results are far superior to what I got from my last scanner. Also, it’s USB-powered, which is convenient.

Here are some scans of doodles:

So, anyway… it rocks. In case you’re curious, it’s a CanoScan LiDE 500F.

I’m aware these scans show smudges and stuff. I left them in deliberately because if I were to clean them up, I’d also want to clean up the paper texture, and that wouldn’t show off the detail captured by the scanner.

“More clear” is clearer than “clearer” but “clearer” is correcter. That bugs me.

When I checked, the top hit for “clearer” on Google was a page about why there isn’t stronger evidence of the existence of a Christian god.

I read a few paragraphs of it, but it quickly degraded to Pascal’s Wager and I lost interest. The paragraph that first set off the Pascal’s Wager alarm was:

Some are tempted to apply the rule that “the more critical the decision, the clearer the evidence must be.” They demand that the evidence for Christianity must be extraordinarily and especially clear to win their allegiance. The problem with this standard is that it assumes that there are no consequences to the decision. If, however, there are cataclysmic consequences to the observer, he will have to settle for “sufficient evidence, or the most trustworthy evidence.”

Wow. If I consider a decision critical, doesn’t that imply that I believe it has severe consequences? The more critical the decision, the more severe the consequences… right?

People who argue in favor of Pascal’s Wager (believe in God just in case, because otherwise you’ll go to hell) ignore an opposite wager: Believe in no god just in case, because otherwise you risk letting a myth motivate your entire existence.

Another interesting wager: Only believe in God if you have strong evidence, because God may damn people who make critical decisions without reason.

Also worth considering: Believe in the religion with the most severe eternal consequences for non-belief.

So, I guess my point is that there may be excellent explanations for lack of evidence supporting a Christian god, but Pascal’s Wager isn’t an effective way to get skeptics to pay attention. It’s entirely focused on the perspective of a believer. It ignores the skeptic’s perspective that IF there is no god and there is no afterlife, a decision that defines her mortal life also defines her entire existence.

What is the target audience of that page?

Last night we had Chinese food. Naturally it came with fortune cookies. My three year old daughter’s fortune said “When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out — because that’s what’s inside.”

Today she had another fortune cookie (left over). I wasn’t there, so here’s my wife’s version of what happened:

[My three year old daughter] is eating another fortune cookie, she made me read it for her:

“The longest journey is the journey inwards.”

She said, “Journey in worms?” looking concerned.

“Journey inwards,” I repeated.

“Journey in words?” she asked.

“Inwards. It means inside.”

“Worms inside me?” she asked, shocked.

“No, a journey inside you.”

“The worms journey inside me?”

“Honey, it’s not about worms. There are no worms inside you. It’s about thinking about who you are.”

“OH, I’m <her name>.”

The End

I never realized it before, but I have a startling amount of hair on my eyelid (not including my eyelashes).

Want to know how to put sound on your web page? You’ve come to the right place!

If you’re eager to get people to close their browser or madly click the Back button as soon as your page loads, make some noise.

There are pretty much no situations in which I want my computer to make noise unexpectedly. On the other hand, I have no issue with pages that let me click a button to turn on sound.

Even if you’re a Harry Potter movie web site (ahem!), please don’t start off by making noise at me. I might be at work, or in the same room someone who’s sleeping, or listening to music, or browsing the web from the closet while I wait for the burglars to leave. Give me a chance to put on headphones, pause my music, decide that I’m just not in the mood to be reminded that my web browser can emit sound, or whatever.

If you still want your web page to make noise, you’re in the wrong place now. Try this HTML sound tutorial… but PLEASE don’t start making noise automatically. Let your visitors decide when it’s time to break the silence.

Thanks!

Rob Karl responded to my post lamenting the loss of Leprosy lyrics with lyrics at least accurate enough to fool me. So, here are the lyrics he provided (unchanged with the exception of the word “love” which I think he unintentionally omitted).

Sung to the tune of Yesterday by The Beatles:

Leprosy,
What a sorry mess I am to see.
Even friends can’t stand to look at me.
Oh, I despise
My leprosy.

Gradually,
I’m not half the man I used to be.
Pieces keep on falling off of me.
It happens now
So gradually.

When my tongue fell off,
I don’t know, I couldn’t say.
I said, [garbled] “zump ping wong”.
Now I long for that sweet day
When I had no

Leprosy.
Making love with me could never be.
Yes, I’ve lost my chance for ecstasy.
Oh I despise
My leprosy.

Thanks, Rob!

Now I need to find a recording.