In spite of my lack of real updates, I can't help but bring up the recent ScienceBlogs controversy. I would have to say I am a fan of the site; it provide great real estate for some quality bloggers. Granted, I primarily read biology related material, so I can't speak for the other disciplines the site represents, but I have found ScienceBlogs to be a worthy venture.
A couple of days ago, ScienceBlog unveiled a new blog, Food Frontiers, which was written and edited by individuals employed in Pepsico's research and development deaprtment. Chaos ensued! The comments were awash with angry denizens crying out in rage. My favorite might have been this post by one of the sites' other bloggers, condemning the action.
I personally don't like this move, not because of the bad science that might be present in Pepsico's new blog, but because the move will forevermore mar the reputation of ScienceBlogs. That's a shame because there's no where else like it on the net at this point. But I'm not too concerned overall because someone could always make a clone of ScienceBlogs to great effect.
As of writing this, I have returned to the blog, and found it removed. I agree that there should be a discussion between business and the science community, and I hope this won't significantly tarnish ScienceBlogs' reputation.
What I'm most interested in is how much of a silent majority follows ScienceBlogs. The comments on that first post made by Pepsi overwhelmingly indicates that ScienceBlogs readers will not stand for this. It seems I won't have my chance to see this happen, since Food Frontiers is no more. I also highly doubt that many people will stay away now that their demands were met so quickly and completely. Sigh, its no fun when people cave to drama.
Substantial (aka, monkeyish) updates soon, I hope. The real-life Troop Mind Journal is missing, cutting off many sources of content, but I think I know its whereabouts. Additionally, publication takes a lot of the writing spirit out of a person. Okay fine, less excuses, more monkeys.
EDIT: This post from a different ScienceBlogger not only addresses many of the questions I've had on the situation, but comprehensively describes the long lead-ins and direct aftermath to the Pepsi incident. Plus, it is essentially a brief history of ScienceBlogs, which I previously knew next to nothing about.
Showing posts with label shit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shit. Show all posts
Thursday, July 8
Monday, June 21
Show 'em the monkey
I occasionally find myself reading classic Marvel comic books from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. I don't often come across gems such as this embedded in the pages of kitchy advertisements.
Now that's a darned impressive offer. 19 bucks for a monkey plus cage and toys? I'll take eight! I shudder to think how many little squirts suffered as a result of this ad. The feeding recommendations might be the worst part. It doesn't even have a diaper like in bathroom monkey commercial! They're cute little guys and all, but they'll make a mess of everything they can touch. Which I suppose is why you have that handy FREE cage sitting around.
They were offering up squirrel monkeys, a new world monkeys, not much like baboons at all. For a comparison, see this picture of me chilling with a real live, non-lollipop fed squirrel monkey at World of Birds.
They're quite small, which is why they'd be ideal for stuffing in a box and and mailing across the country. I'd be very interested to hear just how they guaranteed a live monkey on arrival.
Anyway, thanks Stan Lee!
Anyway, thanks Stan Lee!
Tuesday, March 9
Hazing
It was dark this morning. Darker than usual, which is saying something when its 6 AM in hot and humid Cape Town. Finding sleeping baboons can be tough in the early morning, but they usually give themselves away with occasional grunts, and top it off with a blatant copulation call.
We had seen them the previous night, but as far as we could tell there were no animals. As soon as they move, monkeys become more easily visible in the trees, but a silent, immobile, unlit baboon is almost impossible to identify, even if you're surrounded by sixty of them.
Which I was. I had just started off to go look elsewhere when a fine mist began to deposit minuscule particles of an unknown liquid on my skin. Rain? I thought at first. Weather reports had indicated a possibility for light rain. This conjecture was erased from my mind the moment my nose got a whiff of the repulsive odor of concentrated urea.
About twenty seconds of cursing followed. Then, "Hey guys, they're over here!"
A word on monkey piss. Getting urinated on my tree dwelling primates is a bit of rite of passage among primatologists. You're not a real field research until you've been soiled by an oblivious monkey. I have already been brought into the fold, so each additional time that invisible haze and accompanying smell settles upon me, it is a matter of some consternation. At least I've yet to be pooped on.
The worst is when its raining, though. The monkeys will rush up into the trees to huddle, much of the time. Unfortunately for those below, the rain runs down the trunk, collecting on the coat of the monkey, which pools around the tail, and transform into a fountain of hidden horrors. Baboon butts are not pleasing to any human sense. Well, none of mine. More on this another time...
The darkness may have had something to do with the silence. Cloud cover does a surprising amount for diminishing the sunlight at dawn, and the baboons might just have been truly asleep until I "woke them up" (though I've never heard them so taciturn). As it happened, we waited about twenty minutes without hearing a sound, and the moment after I got wet, the grunting began, soon to be followed by an all to earnest copulation. Thanks for the timing, guys. Wicked pisser.
We had seen them the previous night, but as far as we could tell there were no animals. As soon as they move, monkeys become more easily visible in the trees, but a silent, immobile, unlit baboon is almost impossible to identify, even if you're surrounded by sixty of them.
Which I was. I had just started off to go look elsewhere when a fine mist began to deposit minuscule particles of an unknown liquid on my skin. Rain? I thought at first. Weather reports had indicated a possibility for light rain. This conjecture was erased from my mind the moment my nose got a whiff of the repulsive odor of concentrated urea.
About twenty seconds of cursing followed. Then, "Hey guys, they're over here!"
A word on monkey piss. Getting urinated on my tree dwelling primates is a bit of rite of passage among primatologists. You're not a real field research until you've been soiled by an oblivious monkey. I have already been brought into the fold, so each additional time that invisible haze and accompanying smell settles upon me, it is a matter of some consternation. At least I've yet to be pooped on.
The worst is when its raining, though. The monkeys will rush up into the trees to huddle, much of the time. Unfortunately for those below, the rain runs down the trunk, collecting on the coat of the monkey, which pools around the tail, and transform into a fountain of hidden horrors. Baboon butts are not pleasing to any human sense. Well, none of mine. More on this another time...
The darkness may have had something to do with the silence. Cloud cover does a surprising amount for diminishing the sunlight at dawn, and the baboons might just have been truly asleep until I "woke them up" (though I've never heard them so taciturn). As it happened, we waited about twenty minutes without hearing a sound, and the moment after I got wet, the grunting began, soon to be followed by an all to earnest copulation. Thanks for the timing, guys. Wicked pisser.
Sunday, February 7
News From Nowhere
The newspapers in Cape Town put up "abridged stories" on posters around town on a daily basis. These are actually just headlines meant to sucker you into buying the paper. This time they almost got me. I saw the following headline on my Friday drive back from work, and even signed up for their free online trial so I could read the story.
Man, 69, dies after baboon shoves him
AZIZ HARTLEY
Cape Times
05 Feb 2010
AN ELDERLY man died after a baboon knocked him off a ramp at a Simon’s Town shelter for homeless people, leading to renewed calls for authorities to ensure the baboon troop in the area gets monitored. Michael Bates, 69, a resident of the Happy Valley...read more...
Way to infer a causative link on some the flimsiest evidence imaginable, Cape Times.
Addendum: I went out last night, and majority of people I talked with asked me about this "news." And I was very pleased to be able to explain to them the disgusting truth of the matter. Most people's reactions: "Three days? Seriously?"
AZIZ HARTLEY
Cape Times
05 Feb 2010
AN ELDERLY man died after a baboon knocked him off a ramp at a Simon’s Town shelter for homeless people, leading to renewed calls for authorities to ensure the baboon troop in the area gets monitored. Michael Bates, 69, a resident of the Happy Valley...read more...
...which was three days later (the story being published five days after this).
Way to infer a causative link on some the flimsiest evidence imaginable, Cape Times.
Addendum: I went out last night, and majority of people I talked with asked me about this "news." And I was very pleased to be able to explain to them the disgusting truth of the matter. Most people's reactions: "Three days? Seriously?"
Monday, February 1
Diapadion Hates the Internet - SA Edition
As any educated individual is aware, the modern world is rife with different internets. As it happens, the South African one sucks.
If you were wondering why I was out of commission all weekend (you probably weren't), its was because I ran out of internet. This might not seem possible, but it is! The internet goes to new and unforeseen places in Africa.
Allow me to run this down for you. In most of Africa, the mega-internet connection, which allows whole countries to be connected with the rest of the world, uses satellite technology. Pretty much everywhere else in the world, including North African countries like Egypt, giant underseas fibre optic cables do the heavy lifting because they are much much better than satellites.
Despite being one of the (if not the) most developed African nation, South Africa is still stuck with satellites. Overcoming massive geographic isolation just isn't an easy task. Have a look at a map of the world - we are out of the way. SA isn't quite at the Cape Horn extreme, but it is of the same magnitude. Yet, any day now they'll finish the big tube that will soon give Africa unrestrained access to the nets.
I don't live in that glorious future world. I live in the world where the tube is incomplete, and we in South Africa have to deal with reasonable and unreasonable restrictions on our internet use.
Firstly: bandwidth capping. Capping means that they limit the amount of total (not the rate) information you can upload and download, as opposed to the amount of time you spend connected. Standard monthly allotments run between 1 and 10 gigabytes. You can obtain uncapped accounts, but you have to pay out the wazoo for them.
Secondly, what if you run out of gigabytes? Well, you can "top up" your account with more "air time." You're paying for a minimum monthly allowance, but if you don't use it all, or if you buy extra and don't use that, its gone at the end of the month.
Let it be known that the majority of South African utilities use this system, electricity, water, gas, phones. I can't think of anyone I know, or even anyone I've met, who doesn't use a prepaid cellular phone.
Thirdly, all the connections are ADSL and slow as a raging sloth. Even a premium uncapped connection will be slow by American and European standards because of the satellite limitations.
These are generally things that just "have to be." Now I'll relate my most recent experience, which highlights things that suck and really don't need to suck.
The main service provider is Telkom. I hope they won't revoke my IP for trashing them. Go government subsidized monopolies! So that you do not get boned, Telkom have a service setup where they send you an email once a day letting you know what your remaining available bandwidth is. However, sometimes the emails just don't arrive. This, is bullshit. I could remotely setup a server to send reminder emails.
This would not be such a problem if it was not compounded with Telkom's other critical flaw. Even if you didn't get the emails, you could just run out of bandwidth, and then everything would stop. Then you'd just grumble for a few minutes, get some more bandwidth, and resume what you were doing. This is what you would think would happen.
Not so. When you run out of data each month, you are done. No more refills. You want more, you must get a new account. I just discovered this recently, much to my surprise, sooo... yeah. No internet for a few days until the new month. Fun times. So if you don't get an email, and don't know where you stand, you run out, and are done for the month.
Who thought that was a bright idea?
Being in the black wasn't all bad, of course. Internet draughts are okay (even refreshing) every now and then, but a SURPRISE draught is okay about once. In a post-millennium lifetime. Ever.
In summary, Telkom sucks and no one likes them. Some things are forgivable. Too many are not. I look forward to the day the fiber pipes come to South Africa, and real internet becomes available.
Meanwhile, the baboons didn't care and continued to swing around in pine trees, beat up on each other, and copulate.
If you were wondering why I was out of commission all weekend (you probably weren't), its was because I ran out of internet. This might not seem possible, but it is! The internet goes to new and unforeseen places in Africa.
Allow me to run this down for you. In most of Africa, the mega-internet connection, which allows whole countries to be connected with the rest of the world, uses satellite technology. Pretty much everywhere else in the world, including North African countries like Egypt, giant underseas fibre optic cables do the heavy lifting because they are much much better than satellites.
Despite being one of the (if not the) most developed African nation, South Africa is still stuck with satellites. Overcoming massive geographic isolation just isn't an easy task. Have a look at a map of the world - we are out of the way. SA isn't quite at the Cape Horn extreme, but it is of the same magnitude. Yet, any day now they'll finish the big tube that will soon give Africa unrestrained access to the nets.
I don't live in that glorious future world. I live in the world where the tube is incomplete, and we in South Africa have to deal with reasonable and unreasonable restrictions on our internet use.
Firstly: bandwidth capping. Capping means that they limit the amount of total (not the rate) information you can upload and download, as opposed to the amount of time you spend connected. Standard monthly allotments run between 1 and 10 gigabytes. You can obtain uncapped accounts, but you have to pay out the wazoo for them.
Secondly, what if you run out of gigabytes? Well, you can "top up" your account with more "air time." You're paying for a minimum monthly allowance, but if you don't use it all, or if you buy extra and don't use that, its gone at the end of the month.
Let it be known that the majority of South African utilities use this system, electricity, water, gas, phones. I can't think of anyone I know, or even anyone I've met, who doesn't use a prepaid cellular phone.
Thirdly, all the connections are ADSL and slow as a raging sloth. Even a premium uncapped connection will be slow by American and European standards because of the satellite limitations.
These are generally things that just "have to be." Now I'll relate my most recent experience, which highlights things that suck and really don't need to suck.
The main service provider is Telkom. I hope they won't revoke my IP for trashing them. Go government subsidized monopolies! So that you do not get boned, Telkom have a service setup where they send you an email once a day letting you know what your remaining available bandwidth is. However, sometimes the emails just don't arrive. This, is bullshit. I could remotely setup a server to send reminder emails.
This would not be such a problem if it was not compounded with Telkom's other critical flaw. Even if you didn't get the emails, you could just run out of bandwidth, and then everything would stop. Then you'd just grumble for a few minutes, get some more bandwidth, and resume what you were doing. This is what you would think would happen.
Not so. When you run out of data each month, you are done. No more refills. You want more, you must get a new account. I just discovered this recently, much to my surprise, sooo... yeah. No internet for a few days until the new month. Fun times. So if you don't get an email, and don't know where you stand, you run out, and are done for the month.
Who thought that was a bright idea?
Being in the black wasn't all bad, of course. Internet draughts are okay (even refreshing) every now and then, but a SURPRISE draught is okay about once. In a post-millennium lifetime. Ever.
In summary, Telkom sucks and no one likes them. Some things are forgivable. Too many are not. I look forward to the day the fiber pipes come to South Africa, and real internet becomes available.
Meanwhile, the baboons didn't care and continued to swing around in pine trees, beat up on each other, and copulate.
Thursday, January 28
Technical Report
So all of yesterday was consumed with the hubbub surrounding the new Apple iPad. Despite having my life split between the ultra-progressive technology world and the maddening simplicity of third-world following-monkeys-through-the-forest-studies, I realize that consumer devices still are not exactly within the "scope" of this blog. The links do exist, when one considers that the research of social networking gurus such as Ronald Burt and Sandy Pentland is just an extension of Human Ethology.
But, I was so enraged by the prospect of this Apple tablet, I had to figure out a way I could open my yapper publicly. Fortunately, I realized this was a perfect excuse for me to talk about my computer that I'm using while I'm in Africa down under. I had no idea what sort of setup I was in for when I decided to move to South Africa. I'd say was quite fortunate in the end, but I planned conservatively. I decided I wanted a legitimate netbook after my last stillborn Sager - it would be smaller, cheaper, and probably somehow better.
I'm now using an Asus eeepc 1005HA for all my work and play needs. It performs about as good as I could have expected. I still keep way too many firefox tabs open, way too many other programs open at the same time, and it seems to handle it all with poise. Battery life is very good, too, though I don't move it much because its tethered into my external HD's, speakers, mouse, and keyboard. One shortcoming - not enough USB ports (only 3) but I don't think there's another way to have done it. I just bought a cheap USB hub and now everything is fine. Well, except maybe that the 10 inch screen is a bit small for my one and only source of computing technology.
I initially wished to buy one of the exotic Asus tablet eeepc's, but they weren't widely enough released before I moved to Cape Town. Plus, Asus never did release the 10 inch version, only the 9 incher. Plus, I have no idea what I'd actually use a tablet PC for, I just liked the idea, so I'm very happy with my choice.
This returns us my original impetus for making this post: the new iPad. Let's cut to the chase and compare it to the Asus Tablet PC.
<rant>
What netbooks have that Apple doesn't
Bottom line: guys, there's a reason why no one has made a successful tablet, despite trying for 20 fucking years. I'm all for innovation and shit, but a tablet is a peripheral. I've used the iPhone a respectable amount, and I find it to be a useful enough device (haven't done a hands-on comparison with a droid yet, sadly). The iPad is not even an iPhone - its an iTouch with everything a little bit bigger, which on the whole is not an improvement.
</rant>
In all seriousness, the libertarian in me (which grows stronger by day, it seems) screams in agony every time I read more than a page about recent apple products. Apple purposefully releases products which are sometimes cripple, but almost always take power out of the hands of the user. Apple was once the glorious crusader against the evil Microsoft, but their tactics are not much different. Apple makes it easier for themselves by viciously controlling their hardware specifications, again taking power out of the hands of the user. When viewed in this light, and you see the incredibly vast collection of hardware Windows supports, that product is damn impressive.
I'd like to sum this up with a little anecdote about one of my recent Apple experiences. I was taking a reused G4 machine and setting it up as a multi-zone music playback server, and I intended to use OSX because of all the optimizations it has for Apple hardware. However, in order to cover multiple zones, I needed to add extra output ports for speakers; the single on-board stereo jack wouldn't cut it. I asked one of the local Mac Fanatics about how I could get the OS and software to handle the extra sound card I installed. She replied, with a short laugh, "this is Apple, you don't do that."
To me, this encapsulates the modern Apple mentality. This was not perceived as an issue of whether or not such a thing is possible. Rather than being something you can't do, it was something that you don't do. Don't ask questions, Uncle Steve always knows best - you, the user, are a incapable of judgment and decision.
So I used Linux instead, and everything worked pretty damn peachy.
In other news, you know you're getting over a sickness when you start getting annoyed with yourself that you spent all this time recovering at home and didn't use the time to catch up on little things in the house that you'd been meaning to do for a month or longer.
But, I was so enraged by the prospect of this Apple tablet, I had to figure out a way I could open my yapper publicly. Fortunately, I realized this was a perfect excuse for me to talk about my computer that I'm using while I'm in Africa down under. I had no idea what sort of setup I was in for when I decided to move to South Africa. I'd say was quite fortunate in the end, but I planned conservatively. I decided I wanted a legitimate netbook after my last stillborn Sager - it would be smaller, cheaper, and probably somehow better.
I'm now using an Asus eeepc 1005HA for all my work and play needs. It performs about as good as I could have expected. I still keep way too many firefox tabs open, way too many other programs open at the same time, and it seems to handle it all with poise. Battery life is very good, too, though I don't move it much because its tethered into my external HD's, speakers, mouse, and keyboard. One shortcoming - not enough USB ports (only 3) but I don't think there's another way to have done it. I just bought a cheap USB hub and now everything is fine. Well, except maybe that the 10 inch screen is a bit small for my one and only source of computing technology.
I initially wished to buy one of the exotic Asus tablet eeepc's, but they weren't widely enough released before I moved to Cape Town. Plus, Asus never did release the 10 inch version, only the 9 incher. Plus, I have no idea what I'd actually use a tablet PC for, I just liked the idea, so I'm very happy with my choice.
This returns us my original impetus for making this post: the new iPad. Let's cut to the chase and compare it to the Asus Tablet PC.
<rant>
What netbooks have that Apple doesn't
- Built in physical keyboard and mouse
- Better specifications
- Stylus support and handwriting recognition
- Apple, what the fuck is the point of having a tablet without this?
- USB ports, flash ports
- which means you can't hook up the iPad to a printer...
- Multitasking
- COME ON APPLE
- A real OS with real hardware
- like a camera
- end a useful amount of storage space
- and flash
- A hell of a lot better price point
- Freedom to do what you bloody well please
- A sensible way to hold and use the computer
- 3G support
- if you like AT&T
- um
- uh
- oh right, better battery life
- because 6 hours at heavy load on a netbook isn't enough
- BOOKS!
- fuck yeah
- ...
- Bueller?
Bottom line: guys, there's a reason why no one has made a successful tablet, despite trying for 20 fucking years. I'm all for innovation and shit, but a tablet is a peripheral. I've used the iPhone a respectable amount, and I find it to be a useful enough device (haven't done a hands-on comparison with a droid yet, sadly). The iPad is not even an iPhone - its an iTouch with everything a little bit bigger, which on the whole is not an improvement.
</rant>
In all seriousness, the libertarian in me (which grows stronger by day, it seems) screams in agony every time I read more than a page about recent apple products. Apple purposefully releases products which are sometimes cripple, but almost always take power out of the hands of the user. Apple was once the glorious crusader against the evil Microsoft, but their tactics are not much different. Apple makes it easier for themselves by viciously controlling their hardware specifications, again taking power out of the hands of the user. When viewed in this light, and you see the incredibly vast collection of hardware Windows supports, that product is damn impressive.
I'd like to sum this up with a little anecdote about one of my recent Apple experiences. I was taking a reused G4 machine and setting it up as a multi-zone music playback server, and I intended to use OSX because of all the optimizations it has for Apple hardware. However, in order to cover multiple zones, I needed to add extra output ports for speakers; the single on-board stereo jack wouldn't cut it. I asked one of the local Mac Fanatics about how I could get the OS and software to handle the extra sound card I installed. She replied, with a short laugh, "this is Apple, you don't do that."
To me, this encapsulates the modern Apple mentality. This was not perceived as an issue of whether or not such a thing is possible. Rather than being something you can't do, it was something that you don't do. Don't ask questions, Uncle Steve always knows best - you, the user, are a incapable of judgment and decision.
So I used Linux instead, and everything worked pretty damn peachy.
In other news, you know you're getting over a sickness when you start getting annoyed with yourself that you spent all this time recovering at home and didn't use the time to catch up on little things in the house that you'd been meaning to do for a month or longer.
Friday, January 15
Let's see how far we've come
I've had a long and tiring week, so I will divert the planned substance, and give you something lighter.
I saw Invictus in theaters a couple weeks ago. It was enjoyable. If you haven't heard, it is directed by Clint Eastwood and is an adaptation of Playing the Enemy by John Carlin. The movie was better than Eastwood's previous movie, Gran Torino, yet despite being set in transitional South Africa, it manages to display fewer racist characters. Its really light on the racism I thought - it was as if Eastwood decided to he didn't need to worry about it since the movie was "clearly" about a racist struggle.
The movie cost me about 4 dollars. I was ecstatic. Blue Route Mall is amazing, but true explanation of its glory shall be saved for another time. The show was definitely worthwhile, solely so I could see Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon tromp through baboon poop in the scene filmed right in the middle of where I work everyday.
In related news, hoppzor sent me this link to an amusing blog, and a particular relevantly amusing post.
Also, try playing the "Where's Diapadion's Comment" game while you're browsing.
I saw Invictus in theaters a couple weeks ago. It was enjoyable. If you haven't heard, it is directed by Clint Eastwood and is an adaptation of Playing the Enemy by John Carlin. The movie was better than Eastwood's previous movie, Gran Torino, yet despite being set in transitional South Africa, it manages to display fewer racist characters. Its really light on the racism I thought - it was as if Eastwood decided to he didn't need to worry about it since the movie was "clearly" about a racist struggle.
The movie cost me about 4 dollars. I was ecstatic. Blue Route Mall is amazing, but true explanation of its glory shall be saved for another time. The show was definitely worthwhile, solely so I could see Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon tromp through baboon poop in the scene filmed right in the middle of where I work everyday.
In related news, hoppzor sent me this link to an amusing blog, and a particular relevantly amusing post.
Also, try playing the "Where's Diapadion's Comment" game while you're browsing.
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