Apple Software Update

 
Every few weeks I have to sit patiently and watch while Apple updates my iTunes and QuickTime software.¹ Since I use three different computers (home, work, laptop), this becomes quite a pain and it gives me plenty of time to think about Apple software and it's update policy. They are not happy thoughts.

Maybe someone can answer the questions? Why are the update files so big and why does it take so long to install them? It seems as though I am reinstalling the entire suite of programs each time. Why are there so many updates? Is the software so bad that it needs constant fixing?

Is there any way to turn off the notices? I don't use iTunes but I don't want to uninstall it. Can't I just update it when I want to use it? Same for QuickTime; how important. really, are the updates? Does anyone know?

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1. To be honest, I can do other things as long as I don't mind a very slow internet connection. The updates are huge and the installation takes up a lot of RAM.

What Homeschooling Can Do for your Children

 
Normally I don't make fun of spelling mistakes because I make lots of them myself and I don't think they're funny. However, from time to time the irony is just too delicious.

Leonard has a blog called Stand Your Ground. Who's Leonard, you might ask? Here's the answer ...

A Socially Conservative Don Quixote from Moncton. Strongly pro-life. Strongly pro-family. Strongly opposed to any attempts to turn my nation into something shapeless, cultureless, childless, gender-neutral and politically correct.

Here's the heading from Leonard's post on homeschooling [Homeschooling Is On The Raise].

More and more parents prefer to take control over their children's education, rather than trusting them to a public school system. ....

Sounds much better than a system which has become more about indoctrination (or at the very least - about merely keeping the kids busy from 9 to 3) than about education, doesn't it? Back in 1999, the CBC aired a short report on homeschooling in the National. I don't recall the exact number they mentioned, but there were between 20,000 and 25,000 homeschooled children in Canada back then. Since then we had the courts ruling that excluding books about homosexual cohabition from elementary school libraries is "discriminatory"; that a perverse graduate should be allowed to bring his partner in perversity to the high-school prom - even if it's a Catholic school.

Since then we had the BC government allowing militant homosexuals to monitor all the school curriculum to ensure it's "gay friendly". We had Quebec government introducing a mandatory "Chinese buffet" course in "world religions" which is nothing but a virtual indoctrination into social and moral relativism. How many parents have since resorted to homeschooling as the only way to save the children from becoming guinea-pigs in lefty's social experiments? I dare to assume it's in the 6 digits now.

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Mississippi Act

 
Here's how separation of church and state works in America. There's a bill before the legislature in Mississippi that requires the following disclaimer in public school textbooks [House Bill 25].

The word 'theory' has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations.

This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered a theory.

Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

Study hard and keep an open mind.

This is similar to the language in Cobb country Georgia. Their sticker was ruled unconstitutional in 2005 (Selman v. Cobb County School District).

It's bad enough that there are elected officials in Mississippi who oppose evolution but even worse is the fact that they propose legislation that is unconstitutional. Isn't that treason?

They don't see it that way. They don't really believe that the public schools should be free of religion and they'll keep fighting to put it back in the schools in spite of what any court might say. It's one thing to have something written down in a constitution and it's quite another to get people to live by it. This fight between science and superstition isn't going to be won in the courtroom. It requires changing hearts and minds.

For the time being, let's ignore the fact that the disclaimer contains lies and misrepresentations of science. The main issue is the idea that evolution suggests, "... that random, undirected forces produced living things." This is where science and religion conflict and people who believe in God are quite right to be fearful of what critical thinking and an open mind might do to the faith of their children.¹

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1. The disclaimer pretends to support open-mindedness but in fact it's the exact opposite. It's a form of censorship.

Why Michael Ignatieff Is better than Stephen Harper

 
Here's Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, speaking to young liberals in a Vancouver pub. He may not have been my first choice as leader but he's a lot better than Stephen Harper.

This is a man who can get along with, and be respected by, Barack Obama.

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[Hat Tip: Jennifer Smith]

Take a Stand Without Taking Sides

 
On Tuesday night I went to a meeting of Liberals in my riding and heard Michael Ignatieff speak.

It was a small gathering (250) so there was plenty of opportunity to get to know the new Liberal leader. Many of the questions were challenges to his statements about the Gaza conflict. Ignatieff is careful to blame Hamas and defend Israel and this did not sit well with many of the constituents in my riding who are from the Middle East and South Asia.

There has to be a way to stand up for principles without taking sides. Today's column by James Travers in the Toronto Star makes a good case [Don't take sides but do take a stand].

Canada, with its polyglot population and its military fighting fundamentalism in Afghanistan, is more interested in Middle East conflicts than it is able to influence them. At best it can exert pressure on all sides not to reduce future peace prospects by making the immediate situation worse.

What's possible is relatively straightforward. Canada should be as forceful in holding Israel accountable for its actions as Hamas. And when the shooting stops it should invigorate honest-broker efforts to address the inequities and injustices that inevitably spawn violence.

While no panacea for a conflict layered in complexity, it would at least reaffirm values and principles that in the past informed Canadian Middle East policy. Beyond Israel's security, they include its legitimate expectation to live without fear and the countervailing requirement that Palestinians be released from decades of bondage in their own land.

Not taking sides does not mean not taking a stand. Unequivocal support for Israelis and their safety does not require equivocation on Palestinian human rights and political freedom.

Canada can best serve Israelis and Palestinians by finding its voice when it's time to say "enough."

Sounds good to me.

Jennifer Smith of Runesmith's Canadain Content makes the same point in her letter to Ignatieff [Dear Mr. Ignatieff].

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What Is Science?

 
This video does an excellent job of explaining the difference between science and superstition. The world would be a much better place if everyone took the advice shown here.

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Arlo Guthrie: City of New Orleans

 
While poking around on YouTube I stumbled across this performance by Arlo Guthrie of one of the best songs ever. I just had to share it with the one or two other people who might agree with me. The song was written by Steve Goodman in 1970.

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Meat Loaf: Would you let your daughter listen to "Paradise by the dashboard light?"

 
I have a confession to make. I've been fan of Meat Loaf ever since Rocky Horror Picture Show.¹

It was fun watching Meat Loaf on this FOX news clip—thanks to Greg Laden for posting it.


At six minutes and ten seconds into the video the moderator says that he doesn't want his daughter, when she become 14, listening to "Paradise by the dashboard light." Them's fighting words.

Would you let your daughter see this video and listen to the lyrics? If not, what are you afraid of? Do you think that 14 year old girls (and boys) don't know about sex?


Here's one of my favorites ("I Would Do Anything for Love"). I seem to recall that it was my daughter—when she wasn't much older than 14—who first started playing it on our car trips. Incidentally, Ms. Sandwalk isn't a big fan of Meat Loaf. She has a stack of 20 or 30 CDs that we play on our car trips and I don't think there's a single song by Meat Loaf. There are lots of songs by dudes I never heard of, like Tchaikovsky and The Rolling Stones.

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1. I'm also a fan of Susan Sarandon

Nobel Laureates: Sir Henry Hallett Dale and Otto Loewi

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1936.

"for their discoveries relating to chemical transmission of nerve impulses"

Sir Henry Hallett Dale (1875 - 1968) and Otto Loewi (1873 - 1961) won the Noble Prize in 1936 for discovering the role of chemicals, especially acetycholine, in transmitting nerve impulses.

Today we take it for granted that chemicals are involved at the synapses but in the beginning of the 20th century this wasn't obvious. The impact of this work is apparent from the Presentation Speech.
THEME:
Nobel Laureates

It was generally thought that impulses in the nerves act directly on the muscles or glands bringing about a change in their activity. But as early as 1904, Elliott presented a different interpretation. From the medulla of the adrenal glands, which, as embryonic development shows, is related with the sympathetic nervous system, a substance can be produced, i.e. adrenaline, the effect of which is remarkably similar to that produced by increased activity in the sympathetic system. Elliott therefore supposed that the impulses in the sympathetic nerves produced a release of adrenaline in the nerve endings which would then be the real vehicles of the stimulation effect. Ten years later, Dale published a comprehensive investigation of another substance, acetylcholine, for which he found a corresponding conformity with the effect of the parasympathetic stimulation. As, however, at that time acetylcholine had not been met with in the body, there was not sufficient basis for a discussion as to whether it normally transmitted impulses.

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The images of the Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation (© The Nobel Foundation). They are used here, with permission, for educational purposes only.

[Photo Credits: Henry Hallett Dale: Jamd; Otto Loewi: ©Copyright Encyclopedia of Austria]

Dr. Larry Moran Flunks Philosophy

 
It wouldn't be fair for me to ignore Michael Egnor's devastating put-down demonstrating my ignorance and bigotry [Dr. Larry Moran Flunks Philosophy].

I especially like being called a Darwinian fundamentalist.

The "discussion" is all about Mary's Room. Here's the synopsis from the Wikipedia site.

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. [...] What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

The answer, by the way, is "yes." Mary will learn something when she actually experiences how photons of different wavelengths impinge upon her retina and are interpreted by her brain.

Isn't that profound?

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Falling into a pit

 
Falling into a pit may be a much better analogy for evolution than adaptive peaks and climbing Mt. Improbable. To find out why read Chris Nedin's blog Ediacaran [Climbing Pit Improbable].

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Atheist Buses in Genoa

 
"The bad news is that God does not exist. The good news is that you do not need him."

I wonder how long it will take until these signs show up on buses in the major cities of North America? Anyone want to takes bets on when we'll see an atheist bus sign in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, or Calgary?

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[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

The taste of MSG

 
Discount Thoughts has posted a wonderful description of how we taste the glutamate in monosodium glutamate [How we taste umami]. The taste is called "umami" and it's distinct from the four standard tastes of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

The figure shows a glutamate molecule (yellow) bound to the umami receptor with inosine monophosphate (IMP) (green). You need both glutamate and IMP in order to get the umami taste.

Theme
A Sense of Smell
I know lots of people who can taste MSG but that's not the problem. There appear to be some other effects of this chemical that are much less pleasant.

The umami flavor is common in meats, cheese, seafood, and lots of other foods that are rich in protein. Vegetarians don't know what they're missing!

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Do you know what this is?

 
If you can't identify the organism in the photograph then read The Beautiful Angel of Death on Catalogue of Organisms.

Life is stranger than most of us realize.

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ScieneOnline '09: Things to do in Durham

 
ScienceOnline '09 is being held in the Research Triangle, North Carolina (USA) this weekend. For those of you who aren't familiar with the region, the "triangle" consist of Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham. I've spent a lot of time there over the past 25 years but unfortunately I can't make it this weekend.

Chapel Hill is one of the best places in America for all kinds of reasons. Raleigh is a pretty decent city.

Abel Pharmboy has the unenviable task of promoting Durham. You can read his attempt at: General cool stuff to do in Durham, NC, during ScienceOnline'09.

He did about as good a job as someone from Durham could possibly do.

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