Crichton Takes On Global Warming: Scientists Hacked

Last weekend they had Jurassic Park (#1) on Sci-Fi, and I caught parts of it. Saw it in the theaters when it came out, but seeing it this time underscored for me that–no matter how exciting a dino-thrillride the movie is–the set-up act is filled with implausibilities.

(Like when the heroes see their first dinosaur. I don’t care if it’s a vegetarian brachiosaur–IT’S UNIMAGINABLY HUGE AND NOT AT ALL LETHARGIC AND I’M NOT GETTING OUT OF THE JEEP AND RUNNING UP TO THE THING. In fact, I’ll be demanding that the Jeep be turned around and raced away at top speed, following which I would have a serious discussion with Mr. Billionnaire Dino-Cloner about fatalities and lawsuits and mortal sin connected with driving Jeeps with passengers in the vicinity of free-range brachiosaurs.)

Still, it’s just a movie, and the book is probably better in such regards.

Jurassic Park is only one of Crichton’s novels that have looked at cutting-edge science issues. Another is his just-released book, State of Fear, which deals with global warming.

No, it’s not going to be a re-tread of The Day After Tomorrow (shudder).

Instead, Crichton suggests that global warming has little or nothing to do with humans but is being exploited by activists and scientists to push their agendas.

Scientists, predictably, have launched a pre-emptive strike on the book.

GET THE STORY.

GET THE BOOK.

Satisfying Two Obligations With One Mass

A reader writes:

Christmas Day is a holy day of obligation. The 25th is on a Saturday. Can you explain the breakdown of the mass schedule over the weekend? Here is my confusion.

If we go to mass on the 24th(Friday) does it fulfill the 25th’s (Saturday) obligation? example Saturday night mass fulfills Sunday’s obligation.

It is my understanding that we still need to fulfill Sunday’s obligation as well.

Is there a certain time on the eve of a holy day that is the cut-off time. For example any mass after 12:00 noon on Saturday fulfills the Sunday obligation. Any mass prior to 12:00 noon does not.

Is this all correct?

The way the law is written, you’re articulating something that would seem possible at first glance. Here is what the Code of Canon Law says:

Can.  1248

§1. A person who assists at a Mass celebrated
anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of
the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.

That’s all. No further restrictions.

Given that, it would appear that if a holy day of
obligation on the day before a Sunday that going to a Mass on Saturday
evening fulfills the holy day obligation under the blue clause while
simultaneously fulfilling the Sunday obligation under the red clause.

But that ain’t what it means.

Canonical opinion is almost universally agreed that there are two distinct obligations to attend Mass and they cannot be fulfilled by attending a single Mass. What we appear to have, then, is a drafting problem in the law that could (and hopefully will) be cleared up by an authentic interpretation from Rome.

UPDATE: As pointed out by a kind reader down yonder, I misread the question! Though he was asking one thing when he was asking another. (That’ll learn me to skim a question too quickly!)

The correct answer is that this year a Friday evening Mass will satisfy for the Christmas obligation but then you do have to go to an additional Mass (either Saturday evening or Sunday) to fulfill the Sunday obligation.

As to what counts as evening, this is unclear. Noon is a leading contender as the law does not specify when evening begins. Some hold other positions, but I have yet been able to find a legal text that is in force that backs them up. MORE HERE.

As always, the readings of the Mass have nothing at all to do with whether it satisfies the obligation.

Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

A reader writes:

Geminid meteor shower tonight, I thought you might be interested in posting on your blog, it’s supposed to be good.

Yes, indeedy! Always love a good meteor shower.

The reader also recommends a CNN story (from SPACE.com) on the shower, which says in part:

(SPACE.com) — If you were disappointed with the meager showing put on by this year’s Leonid meteor shower, don’t fret. What could be the best meteor display of the year is scheduled to reach its peak on Monday night, December 13.

Skywatchers with dark skies away from city lights could see one or two meteors every minute during the Geminid meteor shower. The greatest activity is expected to be visible from North America, Europe and Africa.

The Geminids get their name from the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. On the night of this shower’s maximum, the meteors will appear to emanate from a spot in the sky near the bright star Castor in Gemini.

The Geminid meteors are usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even surpassing the famous Perseids of August. Studies of past displays show that this shower has a reputation for being rich both in slow, bright, graceful meteors and fireballs as well as faint meteors, with relatively fewer objects of medium brightness.

GET THE STORY.

Evil File Format

Down yonder, a reader writes:

PDF is a "native" file format on Mac and opens up quickly and easily
in a program that comes with OS X called Preview. No behemoth Adobe
Acrobat Reader required.

I’m not sure it’s fair to label PDF as an Evil File Format when it
is the Windows OS and its substandard applications that are clearly
being evil here.

😛

I don’t know that the Win OS can be characterized as evil here in
that it seems to me that Mac has simply decided to collaborate with the
spread of an evil file format by making it a native file for the OS.
Other OSes don’t have that, to my knowledge, so it seems that Mac is
the unusual one in this regard, not that Win is being defective and
therefore evil.

Mac OS snobbery aside, there are a bunch of reasons why PDF is an evil file format. Here’s a list. Evils 1-5 may not be relevant to the Mac OS, but the rest are, so far as I know:

  1. It requires a separate app to read them.
  2. This app seizes up your computer while it loads.
  3. This app throws up a large and annoying splashscreen to keep you from reading the page in front of you while it loads.
  4. This app is constantly checking the Internet and trying to get you to download updates.
  5. This app has rotating advertising in its free version.
  6. PDF files are often insanely large; they are the document equivalent of bloatware.
  7. PDF files are highly proprietary and cannot be converted to other formats without special tools.
  8. These tools can be EXPENSIVE.
  9. These tools sometimes cannot be used to convert PDFs AT ALL (e.g., when a PDF basically contains an image of a document).
  10. These tools tend to have MASSIVE FORMAT LOSS when they do work.
  11. Without these tools there is a(n UNDOCUMENTED) way that (SOMETIMES) lets you extract basic text from PDFs, but this results in a horrible mess format-wise that has to be untangled by the user and that is more trouble than it is worth when columns are involved.
  12. Finally, PDFs cannot be created without a multi-hundred dollar program that the offending software company (Adobe) is always fiddling with (unless you want to use one of the third-party PDF creators that are of known reliability, usually have their own costs, and may come bundled with spyware).

So there! 😉

Thanks, therefore, to the other reader who found the tool PDF Speedup, to ameliorate Evil #2.

I can just imagine the evil software people at Adobe, who are usually cackling with delight at how much frustration their programs create, gnashing their teeth in rage at the thought of someone making the programs less frustrating to use.

Andromeda: Not Such A Strained Idea After All

This is going to be Michael Crichton week here on the blog. Before it really gets rolling, I’d like to point out that Michael Crichton has given us some interesting books on cutting-edge science issues.

The Andromeda Strain is one that also became a movie (and a really good movie, at that). It anticipated a coming science issue that I really wish people would pay more attention to.

FORTUNATELY, SOME PEOPLE ARE.

One extraterrestrial bug can ruin your whole civilization.

Obsessive-Oppressive Parents (OOPs)

Yesterday I mentioned a theory that excessive modern hygiene–which is a form of risk reduction–leads to the under- and overdevelopment of different aspects of our immune system. If parents don’t let kids go out and play in the dirt, their developing immune systems don’t get the workout they need to develop properly.

That’s the theory anyway.

Unfortunatley, this is not the only area in which parents are inclined to be overprotective of their children today. In the last few decades, parents have been driven absolutely wild with worry about their children (and the media is in significant measure to blame) and this has led them to take an extraordinarily risk-averse approach to parenting that would have struck prior generations (and which does strike other cultures today) as obsessive.

This is true among devout Catholic and Evangelical parents, as well, including homeschoolers (and I count myself as a BIG fan of homeschooling; should I ever be so fortunate as to marry and have kids, I am determined to do what is necessary for them to have a solid homeschooled education).

Recognizing the horriffic culture rot going on around them, Christians have frequently tried to shield children excessively from the challenges of modern culture (e.g. not letting them see scary movies, violent movies, movies with cuss words in them, etc., etc., etc.).

At times, it seems that modern parents (both religious and non-religious alike) are driven by the assumption that they must protect their children from every possible danger or they are being bad parents.

No.

Quite the contrary.

Their job as parents is to raise children who are able to function successfully as adults in the culture as it is, not to forever shield them from any and all dangers.

Since our culture today poses many risks (to adults as well as children!) that means children must be prepared to deal with these risks. The only way for that to happen is to allow children to be progressively exposed to more and more risk–and feel both the rewards of responsible behavior and the pain of irresponsible behavior–so that they learn how to manage it.

Sure, when kids are first born they are completely helpless and have to be shielded and taken care of in virtually everything, but as they grow they have to be allowed to face risks and dangers, in a very limited way at first but with progressively more self-reliance as they age. (Some things, of course, being things to which parents must never willingly let them be exposed, like porn).

If children are shielded from danger and never allowed to make their own decisions (even foolish ones) as they age then bad consequences will follow.

Certain aspects of their psyche will underdevelop and others will overdevelop.

How many parents have had their kids go off to college and, for the first time suddenly free of direct parental control, go completely nuts? How many other parents have kids who can’t seem to cut the cord of dependence on parents, well into physical adulthood? How many have both happenb? These are consequences of not letting children face risk and assume responsibility as they grow.

Even secularists are noting the phenomenon.

HERE’S AN ARTICLE FROM PSYCHOLOGY TODAY ON THE PROBLEM.

Okay, I'm Not Sure I Buy This Theory

HERE’S A STORY QUOTING YUSHCHENKO’S CHIEF OF STAFF SAYING THAT ELEMENTS OF THE KGB MAY HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN THE DIOXIN POISONING.

I would assume that the KGB (a) has access to all kinds of poisons that are far less detectable than dioxin and (b) knows how to actually use such poisons so as to guarantee the death of the victim.

Dioxin appears to be highly detectable (as indicated by the fact they were able to confirm it by testing a living, metabolizing subject long after the poisoning occurred). It also normally builds up over time before it becomes fatal. Nobody has really known till now, it seems, what it does in high, sudden doses. Thus it would be an unreliable way of killing someone and one that would make the fact that a poisoning occurred abundantly clear (leading to an investigation and public outrage).

This sounds more to me like it was the work of amateurs–local Ukranian politicos who had access to dioxin and decided to use it on Yushchenko without really having expertise in a wide range of poisons or how to use them.

Bought Me A New Droid

The oscillating airflow droid that I keep in my bedroom finally conked out, so I went out and bought a new one this weekend (yes, we may still need droids of this type at this time of year here in a semi-desert environment).

Put it together myself, though the box it came in looked like it had been previously opened and taped shut, so the  K-Mart Jawas who sold it to me might have been trying to pull a fast one.

Will be sleeping with one eye open for a few nights.

Not sure if I can trust it yet.

If I can’t, I’ll have to take it down to Anchorhead and have its memory flushed.

WHAT ON EARTH IS HE TALKING ABOUT?

Okay, I’m Not Sure I Buy This Theory

HERE’S A STORY QUOTING YUSHCHENKO’S CHIEF OF STAFF SAYING THAT ELEMENTS OF THE KGB MAY HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN THE DIOXIN POISONING.

I would assume that the KGB (a) has access to all kinds of poisons that are far less detectable than dioxin and (b) knows how to actually use such poisons so as to guarantee the death of the victim.

Dioxin appears to be highly detectable (as indicated by the fact they were able to confirm it by testing a living, metabolizing subject long after the poisoning occurred). It also normally builds up over time before it becomes fatal. Nobody has really known till now, it seems, what it does in high, sudden doses. Thus it would be an unreliable way of killing someone and one that would make the fact that a poisoning occurred abundantly clear (leading to an investigation and public outrage).

This sounds more to me like it was the work of amateurs–local Ukranian politicos who had access to dioxin and decided to use it on Yushchenko without really having expertise in a wide range of poisons or how to use them.