Michael Herr’s trippy fascinating recollection of his time as a journalist during the Vietnam War - first published in the 1970s - is not about Iraq:

Conventional journalism could no more reveal this war than conventional firepower could win it, all it could do was take the most profound event of the American decade and turn it into a communications pudding, taking its most obvious, undeniable history and making it a secret history.

Nope… doesn’t sound like today at all, does it?

Arrrghh… Seriously… Doesn’t anyone in the high councils of war read??!! How does FUBAR keep crashing down? This is not ancient Peloponnesian War stuff… surely someone in the Bush Gang remembers something from their draft dodging days of yore…

Demilitarized Zone / head for the Green Zone / head up in the Ozone… So much for the Golden Age of Journalism…

Thumbs and toes way up… Terrific terrific read…

Its shaping up to be a good event… With keynotes from Jon ‘Maddog’ Hall, OpenMoko, the One Laptop Per Child Project… There is even a ‘Yoga For Geeks’ class to tune you up for running around the convention floor…

Link to details…

It certainly shows Dawkins in a different light than his usual, chopped down and edited video personae. He genuinely wrestles to grasp McGrath’s worldview, rather than simply dismiss him with some logic kung fu… Its more discussion, in other words, than argument.

As for McGrath, he presents more sophisticated reasoning than the evangelical “God is true because the bible says so… which says God is true…” merry-go-round, but the core principles don’t strike me as fundamentally different from those of his more fanatical, fire-breathing soul mates. Ultimately, what remains is a view of Life that is constrained by nothing, inscrutable in its ways and means, and thus is unable to really explain anything at all.

In science, an unquestioning and unyielding faith in one’s world view - impervious to all counterargument - will mark you off as a crank… In religion, it is the job description of a prophet.

Link

Sept. 14th: Ghost World
Sept. 21st: The Elephant Man
Sept. 28th: Iron Giant
Oct. 5th: TBA
Oct. 12th: El Topo
Oct. 17th: TBA
Oct. 31st: John Carpenter’s Halloween
Nov. 2nd: Black Sun / The Devil and Daniel Johnston (9:00pm) — co-presentation w/ Abilities Art Festival
Nov. 23rd: Ping-Pong / The Taste of Tea (9:00pm) — New Japanese Cinema double feature
Nov. 30th: Spirit of the Beehive
Dec. 7th: Boogie Nights

All screenings begin at 7:00pm and are held at Innis Town Hall (Innis College, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto)… I saw a Kung Fu triple-bill there a few months back and it was a fun night…

Link (the College offices are currently under renovation - might be awhile before the server is back up)

Article title Cognition, emotion and the cerebellum
Author Schmahmann, J. D. Caplan, D.
Journal title BRAIN
Bibliographic details 2006, VOL 129; NUMBER 2, pages 290-292
Publisher Oxford University Press
Country of publication Great Britain
ISSN 0006-8950
Language English
Pricing To buy the full text of this article you pay:
£16.00 copyright fee + service charge (from £7.65) + VAT, if applicable

…so with a VAT of 17.5 per cent… and current exchange rates… that is just shy of $60 CDN for a 2 page article!

To view research that was (probably) funded by the public, hosted on a service (British Library) funded by the public, and which the public is expected to pony up yet again to take a look…

PLoS and pro-am biohacking are poised for world domination… Putting these info-vampires out of business will just be a pleasant side-effect…

Link (thanks honeyjr!)

Sunday New York Times Magazine has a story on Sigmund Freud - a committed atheist - and his re-examination of monotheism as a potential incubator of abstract reasoning and a rich inner life:

If people can worship what is not there, they can also reflect on what is not there, or on what is presented to them in symbolic and not immediate terms. So the mental labor of monotheism prepared the Jews — as it would eventually prepare others in the West — to achieve distinction in law, in mathematics, in science and in literary art. It gave them an advantage in all activities that involved making an abstract model of experience, in words or numbers or lines, and working with the abstraction to achieve control over nature or to bring humane order to life. Freud calls this internalizing process an “advance in intellectuality,” and he credits it directly to religion.

It is useful to remember that while dogma often marches in step with religion.. it is not exclusive to religion. It is not so much faith as it is obnoxious certainty that really pushes my buttons [beep!]…

Link

There used to be a saying in the corporate world: “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” You no longer hear this about IBM specifically, but the idea is very much alive; there is a whole category of “enterprise” software companies that exist to take advantage of it. People buying technology for large organizations don’t care if they pay a fortune for mediocre software. It’s not their money. They just want to buy from a supplier who seems safe—a company with an established name, confident salesmen, impressive offices, and software that conforms to all the current fashions. Not necessarily a company that will deliver so much as one that, if they do let you down, will still seem to have been a prudent choice. So companies have evolved to fill that niche.

A recruiter at a big company is in much the same position as someone buying technology for one. If someone went to Stanford and is not obviously insane, they’re probably a safe bet. And a safe bet is enough. No one ever measures recruiters by the later performance of people they turn down.

Link

Speaking to reporters at the a Jewish day school in Thornhill, Ont., on Wednesday, Mr. Tory defended his plan to bring Jewish, Islamic and other religious schools into the public education system.

“They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs,” Mr. Tory said at the Kamin Education Centre.

If elected premier on Oct. 10, Mr. Tory has promised to give private religious schools $400-million if they opt into the public system.

“Jewish, Islamic and other religious schools”… What about the Pastafarians?

Link: “Creationism raised as Ont. election issue” - Globe and Mail

“The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. He believed he was God’s messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann’s struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Kurt Gödel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death.

Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.”

Interspersed are interviews with leading mathematicians of today… Gregory Chaitin especially is fun and engaging and - by lucky coincidence - I just picked up his book Meta Math! from the library… This video is an excellent introduction to some ideas that will put your mind at unease… and this is a Good Thing!

Link

“I took a SteriPEN to Africa for 3 months this summer and the verdict is in: it’s the best water purifier you can carry without a tractor-trailer. It’s basically a UV ray flashlight you submerge into your glass. The water stays cool and it doesn’t change the water, except to kill all the living things in it, viruses included. It is expensive, but pays for itself quickly, as you don’t have to buy bottled water. On my trip, often when I asked a waiter for a glass of tap water, my request would elicit a smile or a laugh. In some cases, they simply would not bring me a glass of water. Most of the time, though, I convinced them — and then, to their amazement, I would take out the SteriPEN, push a button, and stir the water with the glowing purple UV light that always brought stares from other diners. After less than 60 seconds, I would take out the SteriPEN and drink the water, occasionally hearing gasps from other tables.”

Link

...Details about the contents from the Warner press release (as posted on definitive Philip K. Dickian blog Total Dick-head):

Disc One
RIDLEY SCOTT’S ALL-NEW “FINAL CUT” VERSION OF THE FILM

Restored and remastered with added & extended scenes, added lines, new and cleaner special effects and all new 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio. Also includes:

- Commentary by Ridley Scott

- Commentary by Executive Producer/ Co-Screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Co-Screenwriter David Peoples; Producer Michael Deely and production executive Katherine Haber

- Commentaries by visual futurist Syd Mead; production designer Lawrence G. Paull, art director David L. Snyder and special photographic effects supervisors Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer

Disc Two
DOCUMENTARY - DANGEROUS DAYS: MAKING BLADE RUNNER

A feature-length authoritative documentary revealing all the elements that shaped this hugely influential cinema landmark. Cast, crew, critics and colleagues give a behind-the-scenes, in-depth look at the film — from its literary roots and inception through casting, production, visuals and special effects to its controversial legacy and place in Hollywood history.

Disc Three
1982 THEATRICAL VERSION

This is the version that introduced U.S. movie-going audiences to a revolutionary film with a new and excitingly provocative vision of the near-future. It contains Deckard/Harrison Ford’s character narration and has Deckard and Rachel’s (Sean Young) “happy ending” escape scene.

1982 INTERNATIONAL VERSION

Also used on U.S. home video, laserdisc and cable releases up to 1992. This version is not rated, and contains some extended action scenes in contrast to the Theatrical Version.

1992 DIRECTOR’S CUT

The Director’s Cut omits Deckard’s voiceover narration and removes the “happy ending” finale. It adds the famously-controversial “unicorn” sequence, a vision that Deckard has which suggests that he, too, may be a replicant.

Disc Four
BONUS DISC - “Enhancement Archive”

- Featurette The Electric Dreamer: Remembering Philip K. Dick
- Featurette Sacrificial Sheep: The Novel vs. The Film
- Philip K. Dick: The Blade Runner Interviews (Audio)
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Cover Gallery (Images)
- The Art of Blade Runner (Image Galleries)
- Featurette Signs of the Times: Graphic Design
- Featurette Fashion Forward: Wardrobe & Styling
- Screen Tests: Rachel & Pris
- Featurette The Light That Burns: Remembering Jordan Cronenweth
- Unit Photography Gallery
- Deleted & Alternate Scenes
- 1982 Promotional Featurettes
- Trailers & TV Spots
- Featurette Promoting Dystopia: Rendering the Poster Art
- Marketing & Merchandise Gallery (Images)
- Featurette Deck-A-Rep: The True Nature of Rick Deckard
- Featurette Nexus Generation: Fans & Filmmakers

Disc Five
WORKPRINT VERSION

This rare version of the film is considered by some to be the most radically different of all the Blade Runner cuts. It includes an altered opening scene, no Deckard narration until the final scenes, no “unicorn” sequence, no Deckard/Rachel “happy ending,” altered lines between Batty (Rutger Hauer) and his creator Tyrell (Joe Turkell), alternate music and much more.

…plus… plus… a miniature origami unicorn figurine… miniature replica spinner car… collector’s photographs… as well as a signed personal letter from Sir Ridley Scott… all packed in a frickin’ Deckard-replica briefcase!

Rumor has it that early-birders who order now may even have a chance at snagging one of a select few tickets to the offworld colonies scattered amongst the lot…

Link to the Amazon pre-order page…

Link

Link

Prof Richard Dawkins looks at how health has become a battleground between reason and superstition. A third of us now spend a total of over 1.6 billion a year on superstitious alternative remedies, but 80% of them have never been subjected to properly conducted trials.

There are few copies of the program floating around on Google Video and the like, but - in my case - proved to be low bitrate and have some problems syncing audio with video.

Best option is to download the video as a *.torrent file… I used the one found here — http://tinyurl.com/39lyxk

There are two ways of looking at the world – through faith and superstition or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence – in other words, through reason. Reason and a respect for evidence are precious commodities, the source of human progress and our safeguard against fundamentalists and those who profit from obscuring the truth.

Yet, today, society appears to be retreating from reason.

Apparently harmless but utterly irrational belief systems from astrology to New Age mysticism, clairvoyance to alternative health remedies are booming.

Good stuff. Fire up your file-sharing engines and
download the torrent…

*UPDATE:

Its now available on Google Video for viewing…

While exploring your new property you find a large barn. The door is padlocked and welded shut and it’s all rusted solid. So you grind the padlock and the welds off and discover…

Shopping for computer hardware always gives me this warm / fuzzy realization… that anything I want - if I can wait a few months - will just get cheaper and cheaper…

In 1975 a 1MB hard drive was ~$1 million US… so a gigabyte would have required 1,000 big honkin’ drives filling a football field and set you back a billion dollars.

320 gigabyte drive today will sit in the palm of your hand… at a cost of 40 cents per gigabyte.

Granted… 32 years is a bit of a long wait to replace a hard drive…

It’s frustrating to read a blog entry that links to a New York Times article only to discover that the story has disappeared behind a paywall. Bloggers can generate non-expiring links to NYTimes.com articles by running the URLs through the The New York Times Link Generator…

Is it too early to start my Christmas list?

Available at the end of summer at ~$250US, the Linux-powered Asus Eee PC 701 notebook… Some specs:

• Display: 7″
• Processor: Intel mobile CPU (Intel 910 chipset, 900MHz Dothan Pentium M)
• Memory: 512MB RAM
• OS: Linux (Asus customized flavor)
• Storage: 8GB or 16GB flash hard drive
• Webcam: 300K pixel video camera
• Battery life: 3 hours using 4-cell battery
• Weight: 2lbs
• Dimensions: 8.9 in x 6.5 in x 0.82 in - 1.37 in (width x depth x thickness)
• Ports: 3 USB ports, 1 VGA out, SD card reader, modem, Ethernet, headphone out, microphone in

It might pay to wait just a bit longer… In 2008 Asus plans to launch the Eee 1001 with a 10″ screen and a much improved 1280×768 resolution (vs 800×480 on the 7″ model).

Link