Ewan's Corner

Posts Tagged ‘humour’

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.

(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

(via a colleague, circa 1996, original source unknown)

“I’ve worked out what I want to be.

I want to be a code hitman.

I want to contract myself out to the highest bidder and get paid large sums of money to put hits on code. So basically, I get contacted through a secure channel and made aware of what contracts are on the table, then I decide which contract I’m interested in and I let the contractor know that I’m in. I get paid half up front and half when the job is done. I only use my own equipment, my own compiler and my own component libraries and I only handle the specific problem that I’m being paid for, no favours. I go in, I take ownership of the code, I locate the target, and I debug it, or even rewrite it if required. Once the job is done I leave, no questions asked and the other 50% is transferred to an offshore account specified by me. At no point do I get asked for documentation or a helpfile and I’m known in the industry only as “The Meerkat”.”

From Time – Study: Children of Lesbians May Do Better Than Their Peers

The point of this post is not to debate the results of the study – while they are very interesting, the best part by far is the conservative response. I’ll simply quote Survivingtheworld.net who says it best in Lesson 669:

I don’t make these studies up – I just make sure you’ve heard about them.

Of course, science is always open for debate – if you’ve ever been at a scientific presentation, people will routinely ask questions about methods and analysis, and what the conclusions actually mean. In other words, debating science in comparison to other science. So what does the opposing side have to say about this study? Well, let me quote the president of Concerned Women of America:

"You have to be a little suspicious of any study that says children being raised by same-sex couples do better or have superior outcomes to children raised with a mother and father. It just defies common sense and reality."

Ah, yes, common sense. Because nothing has driven society and science forward more than common sense.

A fun and essential 16 minute watch for any parent IMHO – Ken Robinson’s May 2010 TED talk “Bring on the learning revolution!”:

A few snippets which I like:

• And I was up in San Fransisco a while ago doing a book signing. There was this guy buying a book, he was in his 30s. And I said, “What do you do?” And he said, “I’m a fireman.” And I said, “How long have you been a fireman?” He said, “Always, I’ve always been a fireman.” And I said, “Well, when did you decide?” He said, “As a kid.” He said, “Actually, it was a problem for me at school, because at school, everybody wanted to be a fireman.” He said, “But I wanted to be a fireman.” And he said, “When I got to the senior year of school, my teachers didn’t take it seriously. This one teacher didn’t take it seriously. He said I was throwing my life away if that’s all I chose to do with it, that I should go to college, I should become a professional person, that I had great potential, and I was wasting my talent to do that.” And he said, “It was humiliating because he said it in front of the whole class, and I really felt dreadful. But it’s what I wanted, and as soon as I left school, I applied to the fire service and I was accepted.” And he said, “You know, I was thinking about that guy recently, just a few minutes ago when you were speaking, about this teacher,” he said, “because six months ago, I saved his life.” (Laughter) He said, “He was in a car wreck, and I pulled him out, gave him CPR, and I saved his wife’s life as well.” He said, “I think he thinks better of me now.”
  
   
  
• You know something? Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability. And at the heart of our challenges — (Applause) At the heart of the challenge is to reconstitute our sense of ability and of intelligence. This linearity thing is a problem. When I arrived in L.A. about nine years ago, I came across a policy statement, very well-intentioned, which said, “College begins in kindergarten.” No, it doesn’t. (Laughter) It doesn’t. If we had time, I could go into this, but we don’t. (Laughter) Kindergarten begins in kindergarten.
  
   
  
• A friend of mine once said, “You know, a three year-old is not half a six year-old.” (Laughter) (Applause) They’re three. But as we just heard in this last session, there’s such competition now to get to kindergarten, to get to the right kindergarten, that people are being interviewed for it at three. Kids sitting in front of unimpressed panels, you know, with their resumes, (Laughter) flipping through and saying, “Well, this is it?” (Laughter) “You’ve been around for 36 months, and this is it?” (Laughter) “You’ve achieved nothing, commit. Spent the first six months breastfeeding, the way I can see it.” (Laughter) See, it’s outrageous as a conception, but it attracts people.
  
   
  
• And he [W.B. Yeats] says, “I’ve got something else, but it may not be for you.” He says this: “Had I the heavens embroidered cloths and wrought with gold and silver light of blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and light and the half light, I would spread the clothes under your feet; but I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
  
   
  
  And every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly.

Full interactive transcript and more details available on the TED site. On the subject of parenting, Julia Sweeney’s talk – about “the talk” – will also appeal to most parents :-)

Ken’s bio: http://www.ted.com/speakers/sir_ken_robinson.html