Ewan's Corner

Archive for the ‘misc’ Category

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.

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.

(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

Now the happy owner of a BlackBerry Bold 9700, I’ve been running the latest formally released OS version 5.0.0.743 for over a week with no issues.

If you want to upgrade (give you something to play with while we all wait for OS 6 later this year), the procedure is as detailed in my previous post Upgrading Your BlackBerry Operating System, and is much faster on the 9700 (took around 40 minutes). You can grab version 743 from the Rogers Wireless BlackBerry download page:

Package Version: 5.0.0.1254
Consisting of:

Applications: 5.0.0.743
Software Platform: 5.1.0.165
File name: 9700M_PBr5.0.0_rel1254_PL5.1.0.165_A5.0.0.743_Rogers_Wireless_Inc.exe
File size: 133.47MB

Improvements:

1. Generally improved phone responsiveness (no more occasional lagging when switching between running apps, media/photo browser is *far* faster with large collections, even the bootup process after a reset is somewhat faster)
2. Browser performance noticeably improved (hotspot / wifi browser in particular)
3. Better battery life (I don’t have metrics, but it definitely seems significantly better)
4. GPS locks are faster (previously locks would take ages, or simply fail after a few minutes)

Changes / potential issues:

• The lock button no longer password locks the phone. Screen is turned off and keypad locked (from accidental presses, like standby) but not password locked as it was before. Not a biggie, since you can still easily lock the phone using the lock icon.
• Standby (via the top mute button) no longer works. However the lock button does pretty much the same thing now as far as I am concerned.
• AT&T users bitching that visual voicemail is broken (not supported locally by MTN so no loss for me).

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer here, if you’re not comfortable upgrading your phone then don’t. Backup! One of the great things about a BB is the ease of backing up (and should something go wrong, restoring) the phone. This is a new OS version, so you may want to search forums and the like for other user experiences with it before you upgrade.