Ewan's Corner

Happy 90th birthday Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela - you rock.

Links:

• news24's educational site about Mandela
• Madiba's 46664 birthday speech
  

First I discover the sad, sad site that is Conservapedia (sad but still funny in many ways thanks in part to its founder Andrew Schlafly, see my previous post) and then I find their articles on homosexuality. Not funny any more - an advertisement of the worst kind for Christianity, not to mention an example of homophobia, bad science, bias and intolerance. Jon Swift says it better than I ever could.

Then I come across a blog entry by one Zsuzsanna in Tempe, Arizona which blows me away - another example of ignorance, malice, religious intolerance and another terrible advertisement for Christianity.

Zsuzsanna attacks local blogger Tertia of So Close fame for using IVF, calling her a monster, inappropriate, vulgar, and a psycho. WTF? In the same breath she extrapolates from this MSNBC (AP quoted) article, thoroughly demonstrating her ignorance of Africa, African people, statistics and Christianity in general.

Tertia's response (Apparently I am a monster, inappropriate, vulgar and a psycho) is great and happily her blog is showered with mostly sane responses from hundreds of readers, Christians and not. If Zsuzsanna wasn't already exposed as a grade A nutter, her blogged response makes it very clear.

*sigh*

A classic Bad Science post which made me spill my tea when I reached the PPS:
All time classic creationist pwnage.

Andrew Schlafly (a "right wing christian activist") is taken apart by Richard Lenski - a scientist with a sense of humour, a great writing style and some recent fame over lab results which appear to show evolution in action (i first heard about his results a few days ago via Slashdot).

The PPPS in Lenski's reply mirrors my own puzzlement when it comes to Christians who refuse to believe in evolution:

"P.P.P.S. You may be unable to understand, or unwilling to accept, that evolution occurs. And yet, life evolves! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pur_si_muove] From the content on your website, it is clear that you, like many others, view God as the Creator of the Universe. I respect that view. I find it baffling, however, that someone can worship God as the all-mighty Creator while, at the same time, denying even the possibility (not to mention the overwhelming evidence) that God's Creation involved evolution. It is as though a person thinks that God must have the same limitations when it comes to creation as a person who is unable to understand, or even attempt to understand, the world in which we live. Isn't that view insulting to God?"
---Richard Lenski

The past week has been very busy - lots of lessons and self reflection. I have learned:

1. What life is like for a parent with a brain tumour. A friend and ex-colleague of mine recently discovered she has a large brain tumour - probably impossible to remove via surgery, and very much life threatening. She has two young daughters - and is an inspiration to me (such a poor cliché to describe someone so positive and strong who has changed the way I see and appreciate the world, my family and my good health)
2. I need to be a more courageous manager
3. Most of my (business) peers think I am a "nice guy"
   
4. I have a very definitely internal locus of control.
5. I can hold my breath for over 2 minutes in a competitive environment :)
6. I don't always fully appreciate how blessed I am in my work environment - I love my job, and I love working at Derivco
   
7. There *is* ice water on Mars! (aside: "The Big Picture" continues to amaze me daily - most recently with the Martian Skies post).
   
8. The world seems to be heading for a new and scary nuclear showdown
   
9. Fancy French cars are dead in the water when they have electrical problems
10. itunes isn't quite as bad as some people make out. It makes downloading regular podcasts (NBR and GIBS) quick, easy and automated for one thing.
    
11. The orchestral piece I have been half-heartedly hunting for some time is "lux aeterna" from the film "requiem for a dream" - found it mentioned in the brilliant "Requiem For A Day Off" spoof trailer of the classic Ferris Bueller's Day off.
    
12. A puppet show can turn a good kids birthday party into a fantastic one. Caleb totally loses himself in the show, while Daniel is scared of the puppet monster.
13. Launchball is horribly addictive

Download FireFox 3 - the best browser on the planet - during Download Day (June 17th - today - but the official day is US based so starts at 19h00 tonight South African Time) and help them beat the Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period.

See the Download day HQ site, follow the effort on Twitter, other time zone start times listed here as well as on this visual download clock.

Update:

Nearly 10pm local time, and the spreadfirefox.com servers are still down - not a good start to the record attempt. www.mozilla.com still advertises version 2.... but direct download links seem fine thanks to mirrors. The direct download URL looks like so:
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0&os=win&lang=en-US
where you can substitute os=linux to get the linux install, and lang=en-GB for the British language pack.