August 25th, 2010
I hadn’t seen Ben (of BadScience fame) speaking live – and wow was I missing out! He is one of the few speakers for which VLC’s awesome speed-up-without-changing-the-pitch feature is unnecessary – and he’s funny and interesting too!
Watch his great Nerdstock outtake on the fascinating placebo (and nocebo) affects, with obligatory homeopathy back-slap included – a cup of strong coffee beforehand is recommended :-) It’s properly outrageous.
Or use KeepVid to save the video locally as a high quality MP4 to entertain and educate your friends.
For more info on the placebo effect, the Skeptic’s Dictionary has a good writeup.
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August 23rd, 2010
Quotes from three Google Africa interns (currently getting work experience at Google in Zurich) struck me this weekend as a striking contrast to the attitude displayed by some of the strikers currently damaging South Africa’s international image and local economy (not to mention the lives of innocent students and hospital patients).
On the one hand you have a wonderful self-help self-motivated attitude displayed by Kobla (Ghana), Derick (Kenya) and Doug (Democratic Republic of Congo):
Caitlin (University Programs, Google): Finally, I was hoping you could share a few words of wisdom from your home countries with our readers?
Derick: Sure! Mtaka cha mvunguni sharti ainame. In Swahili, this means ‘If you need something that’s on the floor, you’ll have to bend to pick it up.’ In other words: ‘there’s nothing free in life, you have to work for it!’
Kobla: Here’s one from Ghana in the Akan language: Nyansa nnyƐ sika na woakyikyir wodze esie. This means ‘Wisdom is not like money to be tied up and hidden’ or, more simply: ‘wisdom is to be shared.’
Doug: I like this one, in Lingala: Nguba bakalingaka yango na soni te. Literally: ‘Don’t pretend to toast a peanut if you don’t know how to do it.’ Basically, this means that you shouldn’t pretend you know how to do something when you really don’t. If you’re stuck, ask for help!
(via the Google Africa blog)
Contrast that with the attitude of entitlement displayed by some strikers, and this unnamed nurse in particular who clearly has a low external locus of control:
“Why should we care when someone dies, because we are not at work while the government doesn’t care about our lives,” said one nurse, who refused to give her name.
We are coming here every day to stand vigil and see bodies being removed from the hospital.
This is what the government wants. If they didn’t, then we would not have been here in the first place. Patients’ lives have been put at risk by our government.”
I’m all for people’s freedom of expression and right to demand a fair wage, but in this case the demands seem totally unrealistic, and the methods barbaric.
August 7th, 2010
from Ewan’s posterous
Posted in Uncategorized
July 28th, 2010
I put him in a matchbox, and I kept him all the day… And Nanny let my beetle out
Yes, Nanny let my beetle out
She went and let my beetle out-
And beetle ran away. She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,
She said she wanted matches, and she just took off the lid
She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch
An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a match. She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn't mind
As there's lots and lots of beetles which she's certain we could find
If we looked about the garden for the holes where beetles hid-
And we'd get another matchbox, and write BEETLE on the lid. We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,
And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,
And I saw a kind of something, and I gave a sort of shout:
"A beetle-house and Alexander Beetle coming out!" It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be
And he had a sort of look as if he thought it might be ME,
And he had a kind of look as if he thought he ought to say:
"I'm very, very sorry that I tried to run away." And Nanny's very sorry too, for you know what she did,
And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the lid,
So Nan and me are friends, because it's difficult to catch
An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match. Forgiven (affectionately also known as Alexander Beetle)
A.A. Milne
from Ewan’s posterous
Posted in Uncategorized
July 19th, 2010
(disclaimer: this post has very little value right now, It’s mainly a placeholder for future ramblings and rants)
Gillian appears to have taken on Ben Goldacre of Bad Science fame – an ill-advised move if ever there was one – which was then followed by what seems to be a massive PR blunder on her behalf via Twitter (details recorded by JackOfKent and others – The Integrity and Honesty of @gillianmckeith).
Quoting from Dara Ó Briain’s brilliant performance at the Theatre Royal:
“that hideous wench, that cow McKeith. Have you seen "You Are What You Eat"? Its hosted by a whiny, naggy, bony, seed pimp bitch who goes into
the homes of morbidly obese people….The bit that irritates me the most is the bullshit science she comes up with. However there is a science to nutrition, there is technical information that need to be gotten across. she just makes stuff up i think some bullshit about the different vibrational energies for food and different colours and all this yadda-yadda-yadda she might as well just say "eat broccoli, because in it there live imps that will climb out of the broccoli and night and mine the fat off your arse”.
If you are what you eat, she’s eaten a fecking shrew"
And the best part of all – Ben’s post And then I was incompetently libelled by a litigious millionaire contains this little gem of a tune by DogHorse: DrGillian (lyrics).
Further reading:
- Wikipedia’s main article on Gillian – with mentions Ben and his highly recommended book Bad Science
- Wikipedia’s You Are What You Eat article, notable for the controversy section
