I don't want anyone taking this wrongly, but I'm slowly purging comments from ALL my posts unless they're relevant or have something constructive to say. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so generic "I found some information..." etc. and sound like a they were actually written by a human being with something to say about the relevant post.
It's not that I'm being cold or unwelcoming; debate over my views is most acceptable, and I daresay encouraged. But there are so many comment spammers out to post links to sites of questionable content out there, so I've really no way to respond to this implicit idea I'm somehow allowing my blog to become nothing more than advertising for something I have no knowledge of or ability to endorse.
So keep comments relevant and to the point--and I must tell it's another human being letting me in on what he or she has to say.
Damned spammers. Grr...
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The Armchair Conscript
Nobel Prize-winning writer Guenther Grass just keeps getting hailed and slammed. Why don't any of these people lamenting the loss of his moral authority try being forced to join an army whose beliefs you don't share, then survive the ever-so-visceral horror of war?
I don't have to point out how many of Grass's pot-shooting critics make their observations in comfortable book-lined studies, while the much more serious issues of anti-Semitism and bigotry still linger in the public imagination? We should be behind him in bringing his message to a new generation, not telling a man who's lived through what he has to shut up and go away because his army service disqualifies him.
Who're the bigots here?
I don't have to point out how many of Grass's pot-shooting critics make their observations in comfortable book-lined studies, while the much more serious issues of anti-Semitism and bigotry still linger in the public imagination? We should be behind him in bringing his message to a new generation, not telling a man who's lived through what he has to shut up and go away because his army service disqualifies him.
Who're the bigots here?
The Twins Issue
The papparazzi get more and more vicious every day. I'm not just referring to the infamous case of pop duo Twins being filmed in their changing room, but imagine the ruckus that comes up every time some artiste is caught doing this or that. True, we might like a peek into a star's life, to remind ourselves they're just human like the rest of us, but...
I'm no Twins fan, but I'll state it clearly here: no one deserves to have their privacy invaded like this, and nothing whatsoever gives you the right to do so. If justice is eventually executed by beating the photographers responsible to a pulp, they had it coming. Or the eye-for-an-eye method--what if someone filmed the papparazzi in the shower? I for one would enjoy the media circus, though an overhaul of industrial practices would be stretching credulity a little.
This highlights the twisted lengths some technology-armed fanatics eager for exclusive scoops and/or a quick buck will go to. I don't care whether feeding your family depends on the latest expose you bring to light, but providing for your livelihood at the expense of another human being's dignity, and having no shame about doing so, is an outright, inexcusable wrong. I'd feel great if someone inside the Hong Kong press stood up, tooted his whistle, and called, "THIS IS WRONG!"
I don't know if I would or not. I don't yet have a rice bowl to put at stake. But when personal security and the right thing to do clash, God help us to do what He wills.
I'm no Twins fan, but I'll state it clearly here: no one deserves to have their privacy invaded like this, and nothing whatsoever gives you the right to do so. If justice is eventually executed by beating the photographers responsible to a pulp, they had it coming. Or the eye-for-an-eye method--what if someone filmed the papparazzi in the shower? I for one would enjoy the media circus, though an overhaul of industrial practices would be stretching credulity a little.
This highlights the twisted lengths some technology-armed fanatics eager for exclusive scoops and/or a quick buck will go to. I don't care whether feeding your family depends on the latest expose you bring to light, but providing for your livelihood at the expense of another human being's dignity, and having no shame about doing so, is an outright, inexcusable wrong. I'd feel great if someone inside the Hong Kong press stood up, tooted his whistle, and called, "THIS IS WRONG!"
I don't know if I would or not. I don't yet have a rice bowl to put at stake. But when personal security and the right thing to do clash, God help us to do what He wills.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Book review: Comic book science was never so much fun
I saw The Science of Superheroes and its follow-up volume, The Science of Supervillains, in my library… and following my long-buried (OK, three weeks) liking for comics, I borrowed both to see where logic ended and good, reality-clean fun set in.
A few words about comics (“graphic novels” for those not among the hoi polloi): I think they’re a great medium for stories to be told, stories in the rich vein the printed word just doesn’t capture so well. How would an Asterix novel read? A Tintin one? Or for that matter, a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck? Certainly not the same way as within the panels of a comic strip. It loses something.
Where does Superman’s strength come from? Could he exist in the real world? Taking the lens of real-universe physical laws, Gresh and Weinberg put classic superheroes like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four under it to an entertaining read I started at the first page, and couldn’t put down.
For instance, the classic story of Superman’s origin has his father, Jor-El, putting him on a meteor and sending him to Earth. His strength is the result of coming from the higher-gravity world of Krypton; our world’s lower gravitational pull ensures our heaviest buildings are feather-light to him. And wonder of wonders, our sun’s yellow light gives him the extra Mystical Energy Boost he needs for his powers.
Only beings our size and shape cannot survive in a much higher-gravity world like Krypton—they’d be crushed. Ouch.
Ditto for our sun—yellow light is just another wavelength. Heck, they even go through the mathematics, something this A-level physics-trained guy didn’t think applied in Superman’s case. Well, you learn something new every day…
More to the point, The Science of Superheroes is great fun. I read it through twice, one of the few times I so honoured any book—once for fun, the second for a much-needed science revision.
UNFORTUNATELY (as they say in comics)… the first book wasn’t without its flaws; in the chapter on the X-men I’m sorry to say it all came apart. Because the X-men’s powers are biologically based (they’re mutants, duh), it’s fair and good to take so-and-so’s powers, and examine them to see if they’re sound. Could someone really auto-heal like Wolverine? Control the weather like Storm?
Instead the authors zero in on exactly why the X-men possess their powers—evolution, asserting: “The X-men stand or fall with Darwin’s theory.” Question, G & W: how? It’s one thing to possess a selected trait, but another to produce such a drastic change in so narrow a time-frame. And Wolverine’s mutations, for example, are clearly beneficial; his body recovers in an eye-blink from any trauma. How likely is it a ‘good’ mutation will arise, when the vast majority resulted in the mutant dying, unable to adapt to its environment? They should’ve addressed on whether so-and-so’s mutant powers are really plausible, rather than confirming every X-man possible with the same broad brush: “They may even be our children.” The Flash is rejected as being out-of-logic, but what about Magneto’s son, who possesses the same super-speed power? Believe it or not, G & W take up the entire chapter attacking creationism and literal Scripture reading, and expounding Stephen Jay Gould’s punctuated equilibrium evolutionary theory… an irrelevance if I ever saw one. To me it’s just a sneaky way of slipping yet another attack on religion into print. (They do so again in an appendix; “Science has little to say about the supernatural, except that it’s impossible.”) Such broad, sweeping statements, to me, diminished the credibility of the book to the point not even a superhero can restore it. Better minds than mine have filled in more detail, so a rehash would be out of reach for me…
But TSoSH was intriguing enough for me to try out its follow-up, The Science of Supervillains. Being an optimist at heart I hoped the out-of-date science would’ve been cleaned up since then, and we’d get a better view into the supervillain’s psyche. Could Apocalypse have lived so many thousands of years? Perhaps, with cryonic technology. Time travel? It’s there. Could a DNA computer really work, hijacking a human brain in the process? I won’t spoil the surprise, but suffice it to say G & W have done their research. The way technology is progressing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Dr. von Doom in the near future, though Spider-Man’s foe The Lizard remains out of reach. For now.
And I enjoyed seeing villains’ implausibilities as much as I did their demises. Anyone who loves comic books, science or both, you mustn’t miss out. If you love God, though… not to worry. The authors’ case against that is far from convincing.
FINAL RATING:
The Science of Superheroes: 6.0 (out of 10)
The Science of Supervillains: 6.4 (out of 10)
(It would've been higher, but it seems quite a few on amazon.com agreed on the evolution section. Well... that many readers can't be wrong.)
A few words about comics (“graphic novels” for those not among the hoi polloi): I think they’re a great medium for stories to be told, stories in the rich vein the printed word just doesn’t capture so well. How would an Asterix novel read? A Tintin one? Or for that matter, a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck? Certainly not the same way as within the panels of a comic strip. It loses something.
Where does Superman’s strength come from? Could he exist in the real world? Taking the lens of real-universe physical laws, Gresh and Weinberg put classic superheroes like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four under it to an entertaining read I started at the first page, and couldn’t put down.
For instance, the classic story of Superman’s origin has his father, Jor-El, putting him on a meteor and sending him to Earth. His strength is the result of coming from the higher-gravity world of Krypton; our world’s lower gravitational pull ensures our heaviest buildings are feather-light to him. And wonder of wonders, our sun’s yellow light gives him the extra Mystical Energy Boost he needs for his powers.
Only beings our size and shape cannot survive in a much higher-gravity world like Krypton—they’d be crushed. Ouch.
Ditto for our sun—yellow light is just another wavelength. Heck, they even go through the mathematics, something this A-level physics-trained guy didn’t think applied in Superman’s case. Well, you learn something new every day…
More to the point, The Science of Superheroes is great fun. I read it through twice, one of the few times I so honoured any book—once for fun, the second for a much-needed science revision.
UNFORTUNATELY (as they say in comics)… the first book wasn’t without its flaws; in the chapter on the X-men I’m sorry to say it all came apart. Because the X-men’s powers are biologically based (they’re mutants, duh), it’s fair and good to take so-and-so’s powers, and examine them to see if they’re sound. Could someone really auto-heal like Wolverine? Control the weather like Storm?
Instead the authors zero in on exactly why the X-men possess their powers—evolution, asserting: “The X-men stand or fall with Darwin’s theory.” Question, G & W: how? It’s one thing to possess a selected trait, but another to produce such a drastic change in so narrow a time-frame. And Wolverine’s mutations, for example, are clearly beneficial; his body recovers in an eye-blink from any trauma. How likely is it a ‘good’ mutation will arise, when the vast majority resulted in the mutant dying, unable to adapt to its environment? They should’ve addressed on whether so-and-so’s mutant powers are really plausible, rather than confirming every X-man possible with the same broad brush: “They may even be our children.” The Flash is rejected as being out-of-logic, but what about Magneto’s son, who possesses the same super-speed power? Believe it or not, G & W take up the entire chapter attacking creationism and literal Scripture reading, and expounding Stephen Jay Gould’s punctuated equilibrium evolutionary theory… an irrelevance if I ever saw one. To me it’s just a sneaky way of slipping yet another attack on religion into print. (They do so again in an appendix; “Science has little to say about the supernatural, except that it’s impossible.”) Such broad, sweeping statements, to me, diminished the credibility of the book to the point not even a superhero can restore it. Better minds than mine have filled in more detail, so a rehash would be out of reach for me…
But TSoSH was intriguing enough for me to try out its follow-up, The Science of Supervillains. Being an optimist at heart I hoped the out-of-date science would’ve been cleaned up since then, and we’d get a better view into the supervillain’s psyche. Could Apocalypse have lived so many thousands of years? Perhaps, with cryonic technology. Time travel? It’s there. Could a DNA computer really work, hijacking a human brain in the process? I won’t spoil the surprise, but suffice it to say G & W have done their research. The way technology is progressing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Dr. von Doom in the near future, though Spider-Man’s foe The Lizard remains out of reach. For now.
And I enjoyed seeing villains’ implausibilities as much as I did their demises. Anyone who loves comic books, science or both, you mustn’t miss out. If you love God, though… not to worry. The authors’ case against that is far from convincing.
FINAL RATING:
The Science of Superheroes: 6.0 (out of 10)
The Science of Supervillains: 6.4 (out of 10)
(It would've been higher, but it seems quite a few on amazon.com agreed on the evolution section. Well... that many readers can't be wrong.)
Monday, August 14, 2006
Can't help but point this out:
No one seems to be taking Mel Gibson's apology at face value. Maybe they're too used to Hollywood gloss over anything that comes from the mouth? Anyway moralising can only be taken so far; remember it was the model citizens of the day who accused Christ of having a demon? ;)
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Which is easier to cure, body or mind?
I'm pretty sure the Subutex-Dormicium saga answers this question all too well. Drug addiction, while necessitating a painful and hard recovery, is nothing compared to psychological dependence on "highs"--meaning addiction is a hell of a lot easier to cure than human folly.
But why hasn't this been addressed earlier? These are lives we're playing with here, not just bodies.
"See this medicine? Take it and you won't need heroin any more. OK?"
The problem is what abusers need heroin for in the first place. Thrill? Dependence? If Subutex can duplicate the effect it's simply substituting a lesser evil. To the point, abusers need love, fulfilment, and the knowledge someone cares for them enough to stop their lives from being ruined.
I'm not qualified to issue challenges as yet, but answer me this: are we curing the symptoms, or the disease?
But why hasn't this been addressed earlier? These are lives we're playing with here, not just bodies.
"See this medicine? Take it and you won't need heroin any more. OK?"
The problem is what abusers need heroin for in the first place. Thrill? Dependence? If Subutex can duplicate the effect it's simply substituting a lesser evil. To the point, abusers need love, fulfilment, and the knowledge someone cares for them enough to stop their lives from being ruined.
I'm not qualified to issue challenges as yet, but answer me this: are we curing the symptoms, or the disease?
Sunday, August 06, 2006
How do you want your human evil?
Raw? The New Paper's for you; blood, guts, polemic and disgust are all there. I've to admit no other paper gives such detail to the evil humans are capable of--knife attacks on innocents, drug-crazed (?) workers raiding a truck carrying handphones and killing the driver, or anything that totally wipes out whatever faith in humanity you might have had. True, all sin and fall short of the glory of God... but some more dramatically than others.
Sorry, I've just got to get this out of my system.
Sorry, I've just got to get this out of my system.
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