Search for Truth

Posted on September 8, 2006 by Jay

This is a pretty profound comic demonstrating that Truth does not require Belief to continue to be true. Whatever the Truth is will never be altered as the result of disagreement, argument, debate or belief (or disbelief).

The inverse also applies… Belief in something does not compel it to be Truth.

There is Truth that we cannot change. Science is a methodical investigation to find the Truth. Religious Faith is also a seeking of Truth, but it seeks It via a non-proven Belief in a fundamental doctrine. Since the doctrines of the world are largely incompatible with each other, they cannot all be based on Truth. Likewise, since scientific evidence is incomplete, science cannot (at present) definitively provide Truth.

As a scientist (at heart, at least), I desire Truth. I want to see sufficient evidence proving whatever Truth is. Someday we may have scientific evidence to prove Truth true, thus proving everyone with a different Belief wrong.
Truth is true without faith and it’s true without evidence. And without that sufficient evidence, what you believe Truth to be is your Faith.

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Walt Disney World fingerprints visitors

Posted on September 1, 2006 by Jay

Read this Boing Boing article…

They were doing this when we went in June… I didn’t like it one bit.

On the one hand, I was amazed that no one really cared… On the other hand, I put my fingers in those machines just like everyone else.

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My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles

Posted on August 24, 2006 by Jay

It’s official, Pluto is no longer a full-fledged planet. The new definition finalized by the International Astronomical Union today states that a planet in “a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun [or another star], (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” Pluto does not meet the third requirement, so will now be a dwarf planet along with Ceres and 2003 UB313 (aka Xena) plus some others.

Personally, I have thought this should be the case for a while now. Since we keep finding Pluto-like bodies out there, it’s hard to see Pluto being more “important” than all these other (even though it may be a bit bigger).

So go rewrite your textbooks… how do you like “Noodles” replacing “Nine Pizzas”?

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Open Source Linux Phone

Posted on August 16, 2006 by Jay

Trolltech will be shipping a linux-based phone for developers in September. The device will be sold with a developer kit with everything (presumably) you need to write/rewrite software for it. It will connect to cell networks via GSM/GPRS and have builtin wifi. (Story here).

Depending on the price, I really think I want one of these. I’m thinking of using the wifi for communications over jabber+jingle and/or SIP in addition to web and email.

If I end up getting one, you can bet that I’ll be posting about it… you know, my birthday is in September ;-)

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Recording Debut for Beethoven's Violin

Posted on August 3, 2006 by Jay

This is pretty neat:

Beethoven’s own violin has been used in a recording for the first time, according to the Beethoven Foundation. It was played by German violinist Daniel Sepec on a CD of the composer’s violin and piano sonatas.

I want this CD, but can’t find it anywhere online. I wish I at least knew the title of it or something. [Via WCPE]

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More Microsummaries

Posted on July 20, 2006 by Jay

This Microsummary thing is fun! I keep coming across sites/pages that should have them, so I keep makin em. I threw up a little script to allow viewing and installing the ones I’ve made. I propose a wiki-ish microsummary generator site to allow folks to submit ones they’ve made for others’ use. But I’ll just keep putting mine up here for now.

Also, I’ll be putting up links to other peoples lists of generators. If you’ve got one let me know.

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Baby Evan

Posted on July 15, 2006 by Jay

My nephew, Evan Joseph Engbretson was born July 6 weighing in a 6 lbs 12 oz. This is Laura’s (my sister) first, as well as my parents’ first grandchild. Janna and I are hoping to visit very soon, and must rely on the wonder of digital photography and the internet to experience him until then. Here are a couple of shots right after being born. They also got a professional to take some before and after pics of mom and baby… and a little of dad (Links go to photographers blog). We can’t wait to meet Evan in person! Congrats to Laura and John.

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Microsummaries

Posted on July 12, 2006 by Jay

Microsummaries are a fun little addition to the upcoming Firefox 2.0 (and currently in the Beta 1 release). Basically, your bookmark titles can update automatically to give you a quick view of what’s happening on the site. As an example (and my first generator), check out this screen shot of the current weather conditions in Tupelo, MS:

NWS Current Observation Microsummary Bookmark

Dang, it’s hot… and I just had to glance at my bookmarks toolbar to know that :) These microsummaries are very flexible, they can be specified by site owners or generated by user xml files. This lousy blog will surely have microsummary goodness soon enough.

To get your weather, add the current weather observation microsummary generator, bookmark the appropriate XML file (not RSS) from http://www.weather.gov/data/current_obs/, go to the bookmarks properties and check out the drop down box for the title. Ideally, this would work with the more human readable weather page instead of the xml feed, but I didn’t feel like figuring out the XPaths to the pieces of data I needed, I’ll leave that to someone else… or maybe I’ll do it later.

As a side note, this firefox beta crashed 3 times while writing this post, but the new session restore feature brought me back almost exactly where I was… thanks to having saved periodically. Also during the course of writing this, my bookmark title changed to ’96 F – Fair’… I thought it was late enough to be cooling off :(

Update: Here’s a generator for google weather (change the zip code in the url, if you actually use their form, the url will no longer match).

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Zidane's Disgrace

Posted on July 10, 2006 by Jay

In case you missed it, Italy’s Word Cup championship was almost overshadowed by France’s Zinedine Zidane’s vicious headbutt to Italy’s Marco Materazzi. The attack, which was replayed over and over all around the world earned Zidane a red card, ejecting him from what was most likely his last international soccer appearance.

If you missed the game (you know how American’s hate to miss soccer games), take your pick from the plethora of videos of it hosted on youtube.

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Read-only select elements in HTML

Posted on July 6, 2006 by Jay

In HTML 4, form elements can be defined as “readonly” so that the user can’t modify the value. However, you’ll notice that select controls (the drop-down lists) do not support the readonly attribute, just input and textarea controls. Can anyone out there please explain the rational behind this? It seems perfectly reasonable to have a readonly select box, especially if it is put into that state by a script.

I think my workaround will consist of making them disabled so they cannot be editted, and enabling them via a script right before the form submits so that the values for those controls are submitted (disabled controls are not successful and are not “valid for submission”).

If anyone can explain why selects can’t be made readonly, or give me a better solution for simulating readonly-ness, please share.

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