Less attitude; more bike paths, mountains and beer.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, and I for one am feeling a little celebratory. The importance of Darwin’s work cannot be understated. Last year, I took a couple of semesters worth of biology classes, and natural selection could be seen at work throughout those two very entertaining semesters, chapter after chapter, after chapter.

Evolution’s important shit, man!

That Darwin concluded what he did before modern genetics science existed, is a testament to his genius. That evolution can be called into question as “just a theory” by noted scholars such as George W. Bush, and that this stance is perceived as acceptable to any rationally thinking human being, is testament to the gullibility of the American Religious Confused.

And yet the Confused are organized, and powerful, and manipulative, and their members are looking for something to believe, so here we are, with fully 44% of Americans in a Gallup Poll indicating that they believe God created the Earth and everything on it about 10,000 years ago. Today, 44% of Americans believe this. This is the greatest advertising campaign ever. And like cigarettes, it’s a product the advertisers should be ashamed they are promoting. What I find ironic is that the creationists are borrowing heavily from Darwin’s work in the promotion of their agenda. Let me explain.

In evolutionary science, there is the concept of adaptation. This is both a process and a feature. Viewed long-term, adaptation is the process (over generations) where a species, uh, adapts to its environment in a way that increases its chances of continued survival. Viewed more in terms of output, an adaptation is a new or changed feature in a species — say, better eyesight, or faster-twitch muscle fibers, or changed color or markings on your fur, or any one of a billion changes that could randomly come about through genetic mutation, that somehow increases your fitness, your chances of surviving predation and passing on those genetic bits to the next generation.

Now, what’s happening over there, in church? Well, for a while the Book of Genesis worked, but this pesky “theory” of evolution started gaining traction because it was all sciency and stuff. One dude having an incredibly productive week just doesn’t stand up to the scientific method, and so we’re sorry, we simply will not teach that in public school (because, for starters, it is absolutely ridiculous). And so what has come along is a “scientific” alternative to evolution, so-called intelligent design, the whimsical notion that nature is so complex that there simply has to be a “designer” behind it all.

Intelligent design has been packaged as an alternative scientific reasoning, which of course is as oxymoronic as “military intelligence”. But you have to admit it’s clever marketing of a really dumb idea, so clever it appears as rigorously researched and defended science. Genesis was never gonna fly in a biology textbook, but ID just might, and that, my friends, is an adaptation!

So yes, even stupidity can evolve. This concept was brilliantly (and hysterically) extrapolated in the movie “Idiocracy”, and scarily is playing out in real-time right here in real-life, in 2009.

Our friends in the midst of a God delusion will never admit it, but the very formulation of ID is proof of Darwin’s work. Hopefully someday everyone will see the real truth and allow reason and rational thought to pervade everyday life, and relegate religion to the fiction aisle at the bookstore where it belongs. But appreciating the timescales involved in real evolutionary change, I know I won’t see it in my lifetime.

So today I’m going to resolve to enjoy the incredible evolutionary jackpot I was born into for as long as I can, and continue to be a Good Guy, and yes, smugly enjoy the fact that I don’t need a book or a congregation or a pile of dogma to tell me how to do that, or why I should.

Salut, Charles.

below is a photo I snapped while wandering atound MIT’s campus last month; apparently one of the greatest scientific institutions in the world feels old Chuck is engravement-worthy (I agree!).

To merely call my old college buddy a photographer is to understate things a bit. Jeff Bosie, the aforementioned buddy, is a real photographic artist. I had just been bragging about Jeff’s ability to a co-worker just last week, and oddly enough yesterday Jeff sent out a mass email yesterday announcing some updates to his website. So I took the opportunity to click on over and check out the newest additions as well as some of my old faves — three of which are hanging on the walls of my home.

It’s great stuff. I was glad to be able to attend a show of his in Perth Amboy, NJ back when Brenda & I still lived in Jersey. Brenda was so impressed with Jeff’s work that she put Jeff in touch with her bosses at the George Street Playhouse, who hosted a showing for Jeff during one of the performance runs at the Playhouse.

I really can’t say enough about Jeff’s work. To me, it’s inspiring; it’s the kind of photography I imagine myself striving to do, even if my own photos do not back that assertion up. If anything, my latest trip to Jeff’s website just fueled that passion to capture our world and tell a story, without saying a single word. Bravo, Jeff!

• Jeff Bosie Photography
• Jeff Bosie Photography - News Page

And be sure and check out his latest photo essay “Through the Cracks”, which, unfortunately, will break your heart.

Maureen Dowd’s Op-ed piece in the Times yesterday was just great.

As many Americans continue to struggle, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, banks that took government bailout money after throwing the entire world into crisis, have said they will dish out $30 billion in bonuses — up 60 percent from last year. The saying used to be, whatever happens, the lawyers win. Now, it’s whatever happens, the bankers win.

This kind of stuff just pisses me off, and it’s the kind of stuff that needs to be constantly brought to the surface because, well, because it does. And I was invigorated with a fresh dose of skepticism and hatred for these people, thanks to Ms. Dowd. Dare I say, MoDo is filling the giant void left in my Op Ed life by the sad departure of Molly Ivins.

And then today, I read in the NYT OpEd section a letter from the National Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, whining about Ms. Dowd’s piece. It stems from the final paragraph of her editorial:

And as far as doing God’s work, I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.

But, oh no!:

However unintentional, Ms. Dowd’s invoking the New Testament story to illustrate our current financial mess conjures up old prejudices against Jews. - Robert G. Sugarman

Jesus christ (invoked here as an expression of grief/disgust/rage, not asking for his help or anything (or trying to piss off any Jews)), this is the kind of shit that makes me crazy. Can we please keep our eyes on the ball, people? I realize Mr. Sugarman is just doing his job, but it irritates me that the Times ran the letter. On second thought, this seems a clear case of the Times’ Editorial Board just doing theirs, and, sadly, it’s not journalism. What does that say?

So, my last post was a little congratulatory quip to the New York Yankees, for winning their 27th World Series Championship. (Their 27th; I know, it’s a lot!) In the title of that post, I accidentally juxtaposed two characters in my haste to get the thing online, and I was quickly corrected by Yankee haters who likely enjoyed correcting me in the worldwide forum that is the Intertubes. Meow.

That same evening — you know, the one where the Yankees WON THE WORLD SERIES — I guess I also posted a little congratulatory quip on my Facebook status, which became a lightning rod for a discussion on the Yankees, baseball payrolls, unfairness, weah, weah weah.

Some great arguments from both sides of the aisle are contained in that thread, and it has had me thinking. Thanks everyone. Still, my overwhelming directive to everyone is to fucking get over it.

I guess my beef with the Yankee haters can be summed up thusly: Yankee haters categorize this whole thing as a problem with the Yankees (or they call them cheaters, or fags, or some other such juvenile nonsense); intelligent Yankee fans call it a problem with the rules (which it most certainly is, but don’t blame the Yankees for trying to win with any means allowed). Idiotic Yankee fans — which are a huge problem in American society, I agree — just say things like “Yankees number one, fuck you”, and this definitely gets in the way of clear discourse.

And that’s why I want to share two excellent pieces I read today that also try to address the Problem with Baseball, from both sides. First up, a pitch for the pinstripes, from none other than John Gruber, who, as a Macintosh zealot already knows a thing or two about making good points amidst a tidal wave of ignorance:

Daring Fireball - The Yankees

And next up, the flip side which makes all the points my frend Johnny Q makes on my Facebook page, but also throws out some real stretches. (This latter link comes to you by way of John Gruber’s website, BTW.)

Joe Posnanski - The Yankees Payroll

Enjoy. Spring training seems like a long ways off.

The title says it all. Congratulations to the New York Yankees!

We’ve been talking about doing this for months and months, and finally did it. We enrolled Hooper in a beginner’s dog agility class at the Boulder Humane Society, starting up in a couple weeks. Hoop spent half the morning running and jumping in the ballfield today, and we’ve long thought that Hooper would be a natural at agility trials. And even if he sucks at it, we figure he’ll have a good time trying to not suck at it. And so, on November 12th, Hooper will show up for class once again at the Boulder Humane Society and hopefully will ace his classes!

Wow, start actually blogging again, and you discover all these new things about your blogging software. WordPress, the software that has “powered” this blog for the last several years, is up to version 2.8.5 and a lot has changed for the better. Software updates are automated and work seamlessly, even for users running WP on other hosting sites (like me). Themes and plugins have similar auto install/update functionality.

Apparently there’s also a change to the database from latin1 to utf8 character sets, which is wreaking havoc on a few of my posts that have “smart quote” characters in them. Lots of solutions exist, but the “right” one seems to be a slightly involved conversion of my MySQL database and I’m not in the mood. I think I’ll manually change all the characters that need changing.

The upshot of all of this is that I’ve been spending the better part of the morning reading the WordPress Codex site and looking at new themes and plugins for my site. I guess I’m motivated again.

(light transport simulation geekery alert)

Freshly inspired from the recent Radiance Workshop, and cooped up under 22 inches of snow in Boulder, yesterday I took an old web page I created and integrated it into my website. It’s a summary of my first foray into the use of illums on a project. This page dates back to 2003; I’ve been told it’s helpful, so I thought I’d get it back online with all my other crap.

Here’s the link: http://www.rumblestrip.org/interests/light/using-the-illum-material-for-smoother-renderings-in-radiance/

Happy rendering.

I knew this would be a fun World Series, with two teams I like in there, and a good matchup to boot. With a large percentage of my Facebook friends hailing from the Philadelphia area, I detected a certain bias toward the Lesser League’s team in the growing wave of “go team!” status messages over the last few days, and that’s to be expected. After all, trash talking is how we as fans can participate in the game.

Unfortunately, many of the sentiments expressed in the many Facebok status messages I saw last night ranged from infantile to eerily homophobic. Apparently, a favorite pastime is to call an opposing player a homosexual. For example, this zinger floated across my laptop screen last night:

“Gayrod is Cliff Lee’s BITCH!”

Is the implication that if you have one bad night offensively you become a homosexual? Kind of a “one, two, three strikeouts, you’re gay” standard? This seems to violate all logic and scientific research. And besides, with his statement, didn’t our Facebook scholar just implicate Mr. Lee as being a little light in the loafers too? After all, it takes two to tango, and I think that whether Cliff gave A-Rod a reach-around or not (which he does not mention in his comment), he’s gay, according to my little Facebook friend. So, there!

I’ve never understood this knee-jerk reaction to call the opposition gay. Hurling these random ad hominem (ad homonem?) attacks on teams when there are plenty of other suitable insults and jabs available just make you look stupid. Besides, everyone knows that it’s just the Boston Red Sox that are a flaming bunch of queers.

Personally, I’m looking forward to at least four more awesome games in this series, and great performances on both sides of the Great Baseball Divide. I think we truly have one of the best World Series matchups in years, and that both teams truly deserve to be there. This brings me to my second favorite idiot of last evening, the guy who said the Yankees were “overrated”. 103 wins is not an opinion, you homo.

Game Two tonight. Bring it.

Thank you Chase, for making my blood boil with rage enough to finally achieve enough inertia to log in to my long lost blog and post some bile. I should also give a shout-out to the asshole driving the cab to my hotel last week in Boston because that idiot is to blame for starting this little mess in the first place.

Hi everyone!

Yeah, so, I get in a cab at Logan and this guy takes me to my stately suite at the Holiday Inn; $23.30, the total. I swipe my card, feeling a pang of guilt over being so lazy (I probably had the cash, but didn’t feel like digging through my wallet). Should have known.

I navigate the prompts on the screen, approving the sale and gather my things as the screen thanks me for my business and the receipt machine up front whirs and ticks satisfyingly. The cabbie tears off the receipt and studies it. I hand him a five spot. He looks at me like I have a penis coming out of my left ear and asks me “what is this”? I say it’s his tip, impressed with my restraint. He claims I didn’t pay for the ride, that the receipt is missing a confirmation code or whatever. My overwhelming thought at this time is that a receipt came out of the damned machine, and so I’m all done here. The cabbie claims different.

I explain I’m not paying twice; I swiped a card, a touchscreen thanked me for my business, the machine printed a receipt and I forked over five bucks cash that can go unclaimed on a tax return for chrissakes, dammit, I’m done.

The cabbie’s not having it; a debate ensues, in the parking lot of a crappy Holiday Inn, in Cambridge. I make some good points, while the cabbie calls the cops. As I stand there watching this kid pretend to call the police, I decide it’s not worth the embarrassment arguing over twenty bucks in front of a crappy Holiday Inn in Cambridge and swipe again. I take both receipts. The cabbie complains that I didn’t believe him. I said I did not. And tonight, tonight, a week after that incident, I check my bank statement, and there they are, two charges for $23.30, for a business I will not cite out of privacy concerns. Let’s call them “Assface Cab Company”.

Phase Two: we call Chase’s “customer support” number. I summarize the workflow to date, which has no resolution and is comical if you are not me.

Call 1:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
(I wait)
“how can I help you…”
(I explain)
(typing is heard)
“Thank you mister googleametty, I’m sorry for da inconvenience, but as we transition your account to Chase from WAMU we are experiencing some system maintenance and the system is unavailable…”
(I explain that I have been on the phone with this idiot for several minutes and that she could have told me to simply call back when the “system” was “available”, she retorts with nonsense and says to call back in 30 minutes to an hour.)

Call 2, thirty minutes to an hour later:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
(I wait)
“please enter your tax ID number”
(yes, that’s right, they asked me for my tax ID number)
“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your entry…”
(I was cursing and yelling)
(I try hitting zero)
“Thank you for calling the service center. Our offices are now closed…”
(I verify that I called the same number as I called an hour ago, entering the same info, and then hang up)

Call 3:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
“Please enter your four digit PIN…”
(OK, now I’m encouraged, because this is the prompt I got when I first called and spoke to the idiot; I enter my pin.)
“Thank you. For your checking account ending in 2938, your balance is $3,298; for your savings account ending in 9823, your balance is $728…”
(These are not my accounts, nor are the other ones I was given balances for. I hang up.)

So, that’s where we are at this point. God damn, I hate these people.

The upshot, as previously mentioned, is that I am posting again. Good lord, it feels good. My disdain for the general population simply can’t be explained in the construct of a Facebook status update.