Two Dishes But To One Table

Wikipedia Edits

Last month I made an edit to the Wikipedia article on The Matterhorn (that iconic Alp).  It was surprisingly easy to do!  But someone deleted my sentence.  So I put it back.  They re-deleted it the next day. 

What information was I trying to add to the Matterhorn page? I was adding a sentence about Creationism, to fight against Creationism claims about the Alps.

My addendum intended to highlight the numerous Creationist-idiocy pages where some barely literate author announces that fossils aren’t really laid down in any systematic stratigraphy.  They often go on to cite Matterhorn layering as a clear refutation of the entire index fossil system.  When I saw this on a so-called "Creationism Geology" page I was like "wha?"

So I clicked over to the Reality-Based community and looked for some criticism of this Matterhorn-Disproves-Evolution nonsense.  Nothing.  Nothing anywhere.  As usual, the scientists were silent, and maybe ignorant of what the Bible thumpers were putting up on widely spread websites and Bible store paperbacks.

This Internet omission by the true scientists calls to mind John Kerry’s silence while being swiftboated.  Scurrilous ridiculous critics need to be called out as such.  If the Creationists say the Alps prove a young Earth, we need to address that.  So I stuck a pointer into the Wikipedia article, raising the question of “What’s up with Matterhorn geology; why are the Creationists claiming that it supports a 6000 year old Earth?”  And twice my edit was deleted.

I went and looked up who deleted it.  They offered the remark “Deleted anti-scientific bullsh*t”.  I wrote to Wikipedia deleter and explained why I put the little two sentence link in.  And that hopefully some geologist would see my link and drop some science on their Creationist foolishness.  The Wikipedia deleter wrote back saying it didn’t matter, we shouldn’t let any Creationist mention enter into Wikipedia.  So I added my link again and she deleted it a second time.

I looked up who she was and she seemed to be a hardcore fan of guns (Uzi’s!) and also Klingons.

Whatever.  I let it go.  But, for fun, I now look at the histories of Wiki pages.   It’s one of those little secret sides of the web that makes it more fun.  You can do it too: every Wikipedia article has a blue tab marked “History” at the top which you can easily click and peruse.

The Wiki pages of Chinese Olympic gymnasts supposedly showed extensive editing in the age and dates sections, according to the NY Times.

I offer the following as just one typically funny edit, this one from the Stephen Hawking Page on Wikipedia.  Someone is obviously trying to vandalize his biography:

(cur) (last) 06:25, 29 September 2008 70.112.87.218 (Talk) (179 bytes) (←Replaced content with 'STEPHEN HAWKING, ALSO KNOWN AS THE ROBOT MAN, WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO BE HALF HUMAN. HE IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON A PROJECT TO SUCK THE WORLD IN A GIANT BLACK HO...') (undo)

(And if for some reason you feel the need for some Matterhorn Creationism Geology foolishness, try here.)

The Clerk at Starbucks Recalled Her Largest Coffee Ever

"We had a customer at our other store who, more than once, came in and asked for a Venti with 20 shots of espresso in it.  Back then the shots were 75 cents, so he was buying, like, a 15 dollar coffee from us."  I didn't trust my memory so, a few days later I asked her to repeat the exact statistic.  "It was easy for me to remember: Twenty, it rhymes with Venti." (This clerk works at the Starbucks on Woodhaven in Queens that I use as a tutoring base for Organic Chemistry lessons.  Their store is closing next month.)

With a Tongue Like a Cow at Paragon in Manhattan

It's an odd day when a crowded 3 story sporting goods store accidentally  plays "Catholic Girls" over their P.A. and nobody notices. 

While ($evan>0) {print"hello world"}

These days I am studying Java, PERL, and Unix.  I even downloaded a whole Linux operating system for free. 

Computer programming tickles that same part of the brain that enjoys playing those 'plumber' video games, the ones where you move tiles around to bring water to a particular destination.  Writing code feels like stringing together the components of a Rube Goldberg machine.  Composing all those sequential instructions feels like playing chess if you had to declare your entire sequence of, say, 30 moves all in one go.   Except you are allowed all day to plan it.   And your opponent is  dead/asleep -- or completely stupid. 

That's it:  the computer really feels like it is really, really stupid.  You have to tell it everything.   

It Has an Old English 'D' On the Front(1)

Today is a local micro-equinox, marked by the way the morning begins:

We have begun the season when, rising, I shiver, and must put on a sweatshirt¹.

Tonight I will need the second blanket.

Top 25 most Played; iPod Tells No Lies

iTunes keeps track of which songs I play the most.
So no matter any claimed coolness, here is what I really listen to, each played about 35 times.

Guilty pleasures a plenty -- though no Carpenters, Chicago, or Gordon Lightfoot yet.  
 A full third of them are 90's formulaic over-produced rock that I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to when it came out.

1  Them Bones by Alice in Chains (first place, with 39 plays)
2 Exotic Talk by RJD2
3 ATHF MF Doom
4 Don't Know Why I Love You   J-5
5  All Around the World  The Jam
6 Interstate Love Song  Stone Temple Pilots
7  Touch My Tooter  Ween
8 Monkey Man  Rolling Stones
9  Inside Out   Eve 6
10 Grip the Mic  Ultramagnetic MCs

If you look at your own 25 most played (all iTunes players keep this as a default playlist) check to see if this pattern holds:  the second ten (#11 through #20) are much cooler than the played-to-death first ten.   I really think the Top Ten is always going to have the theme to Xanadu or a Don MacLean song from your childhood, yes?

Still My Shingle

What a great place to get a New York City tutor for organic chemistry, regents chemistry, or physics.  When you have to find a tutor, just check here, all you depressed and frustrated young scientists.