Tech Toys, Gaming, Religious Nutters,

[tcpip]

I've been fortunate in the past couple of weeks to acquire a HP Compaq nx5000 (although I'm at a loss why the inbuilt sound card is utterly silent), a Cisco Catalyst 2900XL switch and a dodgy Canon scanner.

People would be utterly disturbed by my LAN. The workgroup is called "Woodland". The computers are "Hedgehog" (Mandrake 10.1/Windows XP dual disk dual boot), "Bunny" (Windows 2000/FreeBSD dual disk boot) and "Rat" (Red Hat Fedora Core 4, the laptop). "Squirrel" (SQL server) and "Badger" (Windows 2003 server) and "Shrew" (BSD server) are also planned. Solved my USB problems from last week with a kernel upgrade. Annoying to say the least. On a related topic CCNA studies go well, with another two modules and c85% for the exams.

Also after over twenty years of collecting, I now have a complete set of Different Worlds magazines. The elusive copy was issue 23 which I gave away as a teenager to a kid down the road who wanted to see what the 'zine was about... On a related topic have hacked out the Mimesis RPS rules into some sort of very specific rules rather than the vague ideas and concepts that I was working with. A new design group is being set up within the next twenty four hours and anyone who wants to be a playtester/designer should contact me.

Related item: brain-breaker of the week goes to a line from patchworkkid "Only in an MMORPG could I use a knife forged from ogre shit by a blind elf to murder a dwarf for his magical hat."

Apparently 'Intelligent design' an option: Nelson; yeah, for the really stupid. On the same note, there's a good anti-homophobic thread going around. I won't repeat it, because most people on my flist would already agree and have already seen it. However, I do recommend you boycott Gloria
Jeans.

Comments

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Thinking about this some more: If it's in a science curriculum, and were I science teacher obliged to teach it then it would be the ideal tool for illustrating scientific method.

What makes a scientific theory? The ability to formulate experiments the failure of which disprove the theory.

What would such an experiment look like for intelligent design? Propose contrary designs that would have been better designs, (we've seen a few). But any such experiement then includes assumptions about better, (we've judge that better means reducing human suffering). And the response is that the designer didn't judge that to be better. Fine, but any experiment can be met with that response, so there's no experiement that can fail, it's not a scientific theory.

Can this can be reduced to a sound bite and trotted out each time the matter comes up, sending them back to the prayer closet?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

What makes a scientific theory? The ability to formulate experiments the failure of which disprove the theory.

*nods* Althought these days falsification is also used for normative positions (and aesthetic expressions as well, for testing personal consistency). Indeed, falsification has become de riguer for anything claiming to be a rational area of inquiry.. Whereas science is strictly about using the falsifiable model with an objectivating attitude towards the physical world.

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

True, I'm just practice penning sound-bites for the media. There's a game to be played, and I'm realising I don't want to lose.