Sunday Quote Special

The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

- George Bernard Shaw

A personal post, for a change

I'm currently at the city of Toluca, Estado de México.
I'm supposed to be a teacher of sorts in a special training group for health promotion coordinators within this state. The topics are wide and varied, I know very well most of them. But right now, I'm not out there doing the training or the talking. I'm inside my hotel room, waiting. for a call.

Oh yes, I'm waiting for a call. The Call.

I have been interviewed by people at the Mexican Institute of Social Health, or IMSS (by the Spanish original words) for a proyect on vaccination. Then by a Big Private Lab that was the sponsor of the researchers. Then by phone by Big Private Labs' epidemiologist for North America. Then by BPL chief of vaccination programs. And now...

Now I'm waiting what I expect to be the final call or interview from BPL before a verdict on "you're in" or "you're out". All I want is... to end this crazy waiting. I'm nervous, I'm overstressed. And I just want to know what's the decision to get going with my life.

People out there... please... send your best wishes to me.

Save a small forest: torrent your textbooks!

Yes sir. I'm actually saying you should scan and torrent your textbooks so other students may save money.

And if you need some textbook, and are short on money, you could start by looking for a torrent file of your book.

A good place to start would be Textbook Torrents, a tracker specifically designed for books. The Textbook Torrents tracker is considered to be the largest library of textbooks on BitTorrent. And quoting from the rules:

* If you have saved enough money by using this site (say, $200 worth of textbooks), please go out and buy a scanner. Scan as many of your other textbooks as you can, and put them up here for others to benefit from. There aren't very many scanned texts out there, so let's change that.
* If you have found all your texts on the tracker (lucky dog), you can afford to buy a text that you don't need specifically for the purpose of sharing, or borrow one from a friend. Think about how much money you would have been wasting if it hadn't been for your fellow members.
* If you have not found anything of use here and have to buy all your books, please think of your fellow students. Devote an evening or two to scanning some of the texts you have on hand to ensure that future students will not be in the same position as you were. Karma will pay you back, sooner or later.

They have already had a confrontation with those making the books and wanting to earn money with them: On July 5th their host suspended Textbook Torrents’ account, and despite the webmaster's many efforts to contact them, they simply didn’t respond to his inquiries. It took more than a week before he was allowed to transfer the domain. Now, more than a month after the site went down, Textbook Torrents returns, and it’s not planning to go away anytime soon.

Their plan now is to focus on making the site’s resources redundant, to reduce vulnerability and to make sure the site remains online. In addition he will work on the legal issues and improve the privacy of the site’s users. One of the most drastic changes is the decision to stop the logging of IP-addresses, which means that the site will stop ratio tracking. Making the tracker public will ensure the privacy of the users, in case the server is compromised.

Let's hope they remain online for a long time now.

Atention everyone! a poll that needs you

There is a running post asking if the phrase "In God we trust" on coins and dollar bills is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

We need your vote, urgently! The fundamentalist, the evangelical, the closed minded religious... are almost winning. We have to stop them!

A most elocuent argument about animal testing

Lately I have been reading quite a bit on the Science Blogs, and related blogs. There, a topic that in my small little world was painful, but at least settled: that of animal testing on research.

Well, some quite horrible things have been happening at the USA scientific community, and this time not related to the idiotic design cult. UC Santa Cruz researchers have had their lives, and that of their families, threatened by animal rights groups. A year ago, a researcher from the UCLA had her home flooded and set on fire. These kinds of incidents includes researchers that use mice and fruit flies. Mice like those everyday people kill at their homes yes, and fruit flies the likes we always try to get rid of.

I had been writing of the best way to talk about this issue, but SciCurious of Neurotic Physiology did so in a far better way than I could.

If you feel animal research is entirely wrong, that’s fine. You can protest by not using any products that have been used or tested on animals. No vaccines. No antibiotics. No chemotherapy. No prosthetics. No getting a cast if you break a leg, no getting an x-ray or an MRI to see what is wrong. No painkillers, no pacemakers, no surgery for your heart failure. No insulin for your diabetes, no surgery for your tumor, no ceasarian section for a safe delivery (And I should note that, prior to the introduction of the C-section and antiseptic medical practices, 1/3 of women died in childbirth). No organ donation or transplants for leukemia. If your pet gets sick, no veterinarians, no surgery. Animals have benefited from animal research, too.

In the realm of things you might use every day: no neosporin, no aspirin, no birth control, no bugspray and no sunblock. No household cleaners, cosmetics, shampoo, or toothpaste (these products may not be tested on animals now, but their predecessors were. However, now that we know enough about the chemicals involved, most of these products are no longer tested on animals). No preservatives in your food. No allergy medications, no plastics in your water bottles, no water purifying tablets.

Welcome to the Dark Ages.

No Brains for the USA?

No wonder this people let George W. Bush as their president. If they also voted for this man:

Burying Intelligent design with their own arguments

Best argumentation ever read to bury fundamentalist arguments against evolution and in favour of creationism/intelligent design. Thanks to Tracie, found at Austin Cline's blog.

Just to make sure we're on the same page:

1. If evolution is unsupported claims, I'm an idiot to believe it.
2. Because evolution is nothing but unsupported claims--it's just the same as religion.
3. Therefore, evolutionists are hypocritical for attacking people who believe in god--the crux of unsupported religion.

But what they don't seem to grasp is this:
4. If I'm an idiot to believe unsupported claims (such as evolution), and evolution is the same as religion in its lack of support. WHAT does that say about people who believe religion?

Wouldn't the points also flow thus:
1. Evolution is no different than religion--they're both unsupported.
2. You're an idiot to believe in evolution because it's not supported.
3. Believing an unsupported god/religion that is the same as evolution makes theists idiots.

Who should care about gods?

I just found a very intresting question made and answered beautifully by Austin Cline in his Atheism/Agnosticism site.

Does God Matter?

Theists who try to argue that their god is indeed important will naturally
support their position by reference to all its supposed characteristics - like
perhaps that it offers eternal salvation for humanity. This seems like a
reasonable direction to go, but is nevertheless flawed. Of course they think
that their god is important, and of course this is closely related to what they think their god is and what it does.

It must be remembered that we didn't ask if their god with its supposed characteristics is important. Instead we asked if the existence of any god, generally speaking, was important.

It's a very intresting article, far better argumented than what I could have come up with, and that covers sereval keypoints. I recommend you to read in full there.

.

One of the arguments more often heard is about the need of a god so that humankind may have social structure and moral standards, and that without belief in a god that is not possible. And the beautiful answer is simple: then belief in a god is necessary, not a god.

If social stability and morality are only achieved with
believing in a god, even a false god, then the theist is claiming that human
societies require massive deceit in order to survive. Moreover, the theist is
arguing that a society doesn't actually need their god, since any god will
apparently do.

Another argument often heard is that the existence of a god gives life a meaning, which is not quite true, as meaning and purpose to life often come from within: a desire to be better, to see children grow up, to travel around, to do something. As Cline says, a god or any other person might show us possible paths for us to take, but we are the traveling party (and that's even after putting aside if anyone can clearly discern a god's intention or plans for us.

If the existence of a god is not actually relevant to how we live our lives and certainly isn't necessary to being a good person, then debating the existence of any god may not be too important
However, the point which must be recognized here is that it cannot be automatically assumed that any god which exists is necessarily important.

.

The conclusion is simple: first ask yourself if a given god matters before even going into a discussion about if that given god exists at all.

PhD Comic: Delete Dissertation?

Click on the image to view it in a bigger size.

I can't keep but feel way too much like a comic character right now...

Don't miss PhD comic.

Glossary: Theonoma / Glosario: Teonoma

Theonoma. the·on·o·ma. From theos, "god," and -oma, a noun suffix used to form names of tumors [Origin: prob. extracted from carcinoma or sarcoma].

Teonoma. teo·no·ma. De theos, "dios," y -oma, sufijo utilizado para formar nombres de tumores [Origen: prob. extraído de carcinoma o sarcoma].

1) It acts on the brain, reducing any capacity for rational thought
2) It secretes toxins which demand that the theonoma be stimulated at least weekly. This stimulation is generally in the form of close association with others who are likewise affectd, and produces endorphins which leave the sufferer with a state of euphoria.
3) Severe cases lead to an overwhelming desire to infect as many people as possible, to increase the periodic stimulation and resulting endorphin release

Like a lot of debilitating diseases, theonomas are best prevented rather than treated.

1) Actúa en el cerebro, reduciendo cualquier capacidad de pensamiento racional.
2) Secreta toxinas que demandan que el teonoma sea estimulado semanalmente. Esta estimulación generalmente toma forma de una asociación cercana con otros sujetos igualmente afectados, y produce endorfinas que dejan al enfermo en un estado de euforia.
3) Casos severos conllevan un irreprimible deseo de infectar tantas personas como sea posible, incrementar la estimulación periódica y las liberaciones de endorfinas resultantes.

Como muchas otras enfermedades debilitantes, los teonomas son más faciles de prevenir que de tratar

NSA forms, in the Memory Hole

The NSA now has made public some 400 pages of blank copies of forms and paperwork used day-to-day, thanks to the Memory Hole and the Freedom of Information Act request (worth 4 years of waiting and 700 dollars).

Worth giving a look at them. Gives some insight on the least known agency from the USA.

Traveling into USA? Mind your data

This comes from the Washington Post, this Friday.

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Are you scared already? I am. If you're not, read on:

he policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "

It seems that since April, a Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the government's power to conduct searches of an international traveler's laptop without suspicion of wrongdoing.

For the US, your rights (foreign or natural to their country) don't apply on the border, and the US has always claimed that the Border is not the United States. The Constitution does not apply there, much less the international laws they have signed but use to clean their asses usually. Even if people have in the past been forced to log in to their laptops and permit the guards to review the laptop, it is the first time it has ever been put in writing for the public as a policy.

So don't travel to the US at all. Or if you have to... take cautions, like these:

Rule zero: backup everything often, and leave copies at home, or send them by DHL, UPS, etc.

1. Wipe your browser cache regularly.
2. Sanitize the laptop before you cross the border. Delete your desktop contents, download folders, etc.
3. Bring an inexpensive laptop you can afford to lose, with a free OS like Ubuntu Linux, so the loss will be minimal. Regularly wipe and reinstall before a trip.
4. Get some good encryption, like the freeware TruCrypt and create plausible doubt.
5. Put something you can share, worthless, clearly encrypted and useless to most people, so if found, won't cause you troubles.

Sex, groaning, hyperventilation.

And it's all science...

Wonderful post explaining a scientific paper on a theme most will find intresting. I hope you like it. The paper? “On the function of groaning and hyperventilation during sexual intercourse: intensification of sexual experience by altering brain metabolism through hypocapnia”.

I'll give you just a tease:

However, here the authors hypothesize that hyperventilation may produce increased sexual response in ourselves. What’s the purpose of this? Well, sex is supposed to be fun, if it weren’t, you wouldn’t do it, and then the species would die out. So presumably physiological responses that increase our enjoyment of sex would make us more likely to do it again. Additionally, our physiological responses are designed so that we can’t stop halfway. So a decrease in cortical blood flow from hyperventilating would stop us thinking very clearly, and thus keep us doin’ what we’re doin’.