Monthly Archives: July 2007

Darwin Awards on DVD

So… it looks like they’re releasing a movie on DVD based on the famed Darwin Awards. Winona Ryder co-stars. Should be interesting…

If you’ve been living in a cave and haven’t heard of the Darwin Awards before, it’s an honor bestowed upon people who have selflessly (if inadvertantly) removed themselves from the human gene pool through acts of sheer stupidity, and are therefore doing the human race a service by presumably decreasing, if ever-so-slightly, the quantity of genes in the pool that result in stupid people. There are a few rules that must be met in order to qualify for a Darwin Award, the most important of which (IMO, at least) are:

  1. The victim/awardee must have displayed an “astounding misapplication of judgment”, and
  2. The victim/awardee must have removed perself from the gene pool; that is, phe must no longer be capable of procreating. The usual way this is accomplished is via the removal of oneself from among the living; however, it is sufficient to have damaged one’s reproductive organs in such a way as to meet this requirement. 🙂

Beauty and the Beast

The family has started watching the late 80s television series, Beauty and the Beast, seasons one and two of which are currently available on DVD, about a female news reporter whose life is saved by a man who is part lion and is part of a small society that lives in secret far below the streets of New York city, and share an empathic bond from that moment forward. Sara and I both loved the series growing up, but then it just sort of quietly disappeared; I don’t know if the series finished up or it was cancelled, but they didn’t play any reruns, and I barely heard a whisper about it until I happened to notice season 2 available at my local Fry’s Electronics store.

While watching the initial credits, I noticed that Vincent (the lion guy), is played by Ron Perlman, whose name rang a familiar bell, so I looked him up in IMDB. Turns out, there’s a reason I recognized that name: he’s been in several movies, some of which you’re sure to have at least heard of. He’s been in Hellboy, Highlander; several notable video games including Fallout, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, and Forgotton Realms: Icewind Dale. The most striking to me (but one you’re probably not as familiar with), is the french film The City of Lost Children, which is a really well-done, artistic and charming (and surreal and bizarre and disturbing) movie, co-written and co-directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also brought us Amélie, the delightfully twisted cannibalism-themed Delicatessen, and… Alien Resurrection!

A Lack of Basic Understanding

As I mentioned previously, I have recently subscribed to Answers magazine, produced by Answers In Genesis, famous for their recent opening of the Creation Museum.

I received my first issue a couple months ago. The chief reason I subscribed was that I wanted to keep abreast of anti-evolutionary arguments, and Creationist reactions to recent scientific discoveries as they occurred. The issue I first received was almost entirely dedicated to the stories of the global flood and Noah’s Ark.

I was rather disappointed to discover that there was actually rather little in the magazine for me to actually evaluate, as most of the writing offered no references to back up their claims and assertions; thus, there was nothing for me to reason about—only rhetoric. I have just received the next issue, which I have not yet opened; I’m hoping there will be more interesting arguments in that one, and hopefully some references to back up a few of the claims.

However, I was struck by this very brief snippet of an article (it was, IIRC, less than half of a page in length). I think it illustrates rather well the extreme lack of understanding of basic principles of evolutionary theory or mechanics, or even terminology:

The textbook authors recognize that the resistance is already present in the bacterial population (Fig. 15.5) and then claim that selection for resistant bacteria in a population is direct evidence for evolution. Selecting for something that is already present does not provide support for the information-gaining change required for evolution.

Of course, this text completely ignores the question, how did the variations between resistant and non-resistant bacteria arise in the first place? No biology textbook will claim that the selection itself is how an individual organism becomes stronger: selection only explains why the percentage of resistant bacteria will tend to get stronger. But, evolution does explain how the variation arose that allowed some of the population to become more resistant than the others.

Of course, I have to wonder about a group who struggles with the idea that a colony of bacteria can develop minute changes allowing some of them to become resistant to antibiotics, but clings to the concept that lions and house cats evolved from the same animal “kind” (which was represented by a population of two to seven on Noah’s ark), and dogs and foxes from another, in the last 4,000 years, while, of course, rejecting the idea that evolution could have caused any transition from one “kind” to another.

The article also claims that evolutionary biology textbooks say there is support for the claim “that molecules can change into completely different kinds of creatures.” So much for proof-reading.

It appears I may have been a tad optimistic in expecting to find some shred of reasoned argument in this periodical…

RTFM

Today’s xkcd comic seems to sum up rather well, the attitude many developers seem to have regarding the user experience. Moral: just because the user didn’t thoroughly familiarize perself with the documentation, it does not mean the program is excused from Doing The Right Thing.

Soda Can Caffeine Contents

Did you know that Coca-Cola has less caffeine than either Pepsi or Diet Pepsi, but that Diet Coke has more caffeine than any of those (by at least 8 mg/12 oz)? As does Dr Pepper, which has a few mg less than Diet Coke; and as commonly known, Mountain Dew has all those beat. As might be expected, generic brands tend to have really sucky caffeine content (12.7 mg/12 oz for Sam’s Cola). The Journal of Food Science has a comparison of caffeine content from a variety of sodas; unfortunately, the article is available online only to subscribers; but the abstract (I found from Digg) at least is somewhat informative. I’d like to get my hands on the full article, but don’t feel like subscribing just to get at it.

On a related note: what do you think the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero? My initial assumption, when Coke Zero first came out, was that they had replaced the asphartame (“NutraSweet” brand) with sucralose (“Splenda” brand), but a quick inspection of the ingredients on the bottle proved this to be wrong. So I spent some time wondering: what’s different, then? They both use asphartame, they both have zero carbs, zero calories: what makes Zero, Zero, and not Diet? (There is, BTW, a completely Splenda-sweetened Diet Coke; it’s still not as good as regular Coke, perhaps due to what I’m about to explain about the Diet Coke formula, but IMO it’s better than NutraSweet.)

Well, according to Wikipedia (Coke Zero, Diet Coke), the answer is that Diet Coke is not based on the same formula as regular Coca-Cola, but instead uses the same formula that the ill-favored and short-lived “New Coke” was based on. It’s not Coca-Cola with all the corn syrup replaced by asphartame, but rather New Coke before all the asphartame was replaced with corn syrup! So, the answer is that Coke Zero fills the “Coca-Cola with all the corn syrup replaced by asphartame” gap.

Of course, if you’re like me, you’d prefer a variety of Coke that fills the “Coca-Cola with all the corn syrup replaced with actual cane sugar once again” gap. For now, I’ll just have to continue to make do with the occasional bottle import from Mexico, when I’m out at a Mexican restaurant that offers these.